


In the Footsteps of the Master: A Hitchcockian Thriller

by Ghislainem70



Series: The Indestructibles [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, BAMF!John, BAMF!Lestrade, BAMF!Mycroft, BAMF!Sherlock, BDSM, D/s, First Time, Guilt, Intrigue, Jealous Sherlock, Johnlock Roulette, Johnstrade, Mystery, Pining Sherlock, Romance, Unrequited Love, pining!lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:58:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 93,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghislainem70/pseuds/Ghislainem70
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lestrade and Donovan investigate Sherlock as a suspect in a series of Hitchcock-inspired serial murders, and Mycroft makes a dramatic return to field work when the Russian mob threatens Lestrade during the 2011 London riots. A thriller on the Hitchcockian themes of murder, obsession, jealousy, love and betrayal.  Not especially canon-compliant, mostly as to the Holmes family. COMPLETE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hard Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> Note: Readers curious about John and Sherlock's D/s relationship may find my fic "Mad, Bad and Dangerous: A Frankenstein Tribute" of interest, although it is otherwise not necessary to the story that follows.

 

 

_(Note: Although in no way necessary to the story that follows, this case!fic is part of the Indestructible series of adventures.)_

 

Sherlock and John returned to London to find autumn’s chill enveloping the great city.

John was feeling conflicted pangs at leaving Yorkshire, the pleasures of the countryside, and the comforts of Lady Holmes’ estate, Riddleston Hall. But seeing Sherlock looking eagerly out the window of Lady Holmes’ Rolls Royce, well-fed (for once) on Lady Holmes’ cook’s hearty fare, fit and keen for the challenges of the inevitable next case was ample compensation.

And Christmas was not so far away; John recalled with a smile Lady Holmes’ last words as she sent them back to 221b: "Sherlock, you promised. And now Captain Watson has promised, too. Don’t think he won’t be welcome without you, Sherlock. It’s quite true, Captain Watson, don’t forget you promised. If Sherlock gives you the least difficulty just ring me — I’ll send the car down for you anyway; Sherlock can stay home and sulk. He usually does. You’ll be the best company I could wish for, anyway, if Sherlock is going to keep making such faces about the holidays."

Lady Holmes’ driver, Edgar, dropped them at 221b and John asked him to give his best regards to Lady Holmes and to tell her he would phone her soon. Sherlock was already dashing up the stair.

A cry of horror made John leap the stairs two at a time after him, his heart in his throat.

He flung the door to the flat open to find Sherlock staggering about the flat as though having some sort of seizure. A quick glance revealed the cause. John gave Sherlock room to get it out of his system, if such a thing were possible.

* * *

When Lady Holmes had kindly removed Sherlock and John to her Yorkshire estate just a month ago, she had been appalled at the atrocious condition of the flat; specifically, Sherlock’s intricate and unsavory messes that occupied nearly every square inch of their living space. Even the little breakfast table between the windows, which Sherlock had provided as John’s own sacrosanct space for dining and typing on his blog, had succumbed to the relentless encroachments of Sherlock’s experiments. Lady Holmes had taken the key to the flat and set her London housekeeper, Rigby, to clean it in their absence.

Sherlock had apparently deleted this information. Now, the pristine order inside 221b was causing him to hyperventilate. John finally snuck past him to admire, as if in a dream, the sparkling countertops of their kitchen. He tried, and failed, to recall if he had ever actually seen the countertops. With a thrill he opened the refrigerator. And was stunned to see it well stocked — and absent anything resembling a human body part.

He quickly assembled a snack, uncertain how long this store would survive. Sherlock dashed to his bedroom. John heard a heartfelt "Thank God!" Evidently even the brave Rigby had been unwilling to cross that threshhold without a HazMat suit. John grinned and settled himself in his accustomed chair.

There was a rap on the door.

"Come in," John called.

Mrs. Hudson stuck her head around the door, looking her usual fabulous self in a well-cut purple floral dress that showed her trim legs. She had a huge bundle of mail tied in a string.

"Doctor Watson?" She said cheerfully, although uncertain of her welcome. The last time she saw John he was still suffering from amnesia and sadly, hadn’t known her. His sojourn in Yorkshire had brought John through a number of interesting incidents, not the least of which had been the full recovery of his memory. He rose from the chair and went to embrace her.

"It’s me, it’s John, Mrs. Hudson. Don’t worry, I’m fine now," he assured her. She beamed at him.

"Oh, I’m so glad!! I can’t tell you how dreadful we all felt with you in that terrible state. You look so well! Whatever medicine you’re taking, I’d like a bit, if you can spare some," she whispered conspiratorially. "The herbal soothers don’t really do much for memory, you know. The opposite, usually." She looked up at him expectantly.

"Er – It wasn’t medicine, Mrs. Hudson – nothing like that. It was a skull, actually," he said mischievously. John’s memory had finally been restored in a flash when he unexpectedly encountered the skull of an entire human skeleton kept in a study in Lady Holmes’ estate.

Although newly polished with some unknown cleanser (what did one use to polish skeletal remains?), Rigby had not moved the skull, which had been returned to its pride of place on the mantel.

"Hmmph," Mrs. Hudson sniffed. "Homeopathic, was it? I did hear of some terrible foreign medicine made from tiger bones, something like that – but surely that was for – " here she leaned in to whisper loudly near his ear – "men’s problems, you know. I never thought you and Sherlock had any trouble in that area ---- not from what I could hear, you understand — "

John was backing away now.

"Er – I think you have it wrong, Mrs. Hudson – nothing like that, I assure you. I mean, no, it wasn’t — Anyway, look, I can prescribe you some vitamins, supposed to be very good for memory, if you like. Is that the mail?" He took the bundle from her, hoping to distract her from any further inquiries in this department.

Sherlock swept back in, finally removing his coat and flinging it across a chair, ignoring the empty coatrack. "Oh, good, the mail," he said greedily, seizing it from John and flopping on the sofa to tear into the missives. He haphazardly tossed envelopes and unwanted letters and bills around him on the floor. And so the disorder began to be restored.

* * *

"I suppose Lestrade has been round the flat, looking for me," Sherlock said as he scanned the pile. He suppressed the silent, "or for John." Since the conclusion of the last case, during which Lestrade had made crystal clear his continued fixation upon John, Sherlock had deliberately kept his mobile shut off for once and devoted his entire attention to John.

He fully expected his voicemail to be full of urgent demands for assistance by The World’s Only Consulting Detective.

"No, Sherlock, I can’t say I have seen Detective Inspector Lestrade," Mrs. Hudson said, admiring the cleanliness and order reigning in 221b. "Once, about a month ago, but nothing since then. It’s been ever so quiet, too, since the construction next door was finished. . . I’m so glad you’re well again, Doctor Watson. If you change your mind about that special medicine — don’t be embarrassed, I should think something that would give you your memory back and help with that — little problem –"

"Yes, thank you very much, Mrs. Hudson, I’ll let you know," John said, mortified, as he ushered her out the door. The truth was that since his terrible injuries in Afghanistan, he was not yet completely back to his old strength, even now. He and Sherlock had had a great deal of quiet rest and privacy in Yorkshire, but he was still just a over a month out of hospital, and had lingering trepidation about not being up to — well, it was just that Sherlock was quite a handful, notwithstanding that he had been the very soul of self-sacrifice and restraint during John’s seemingly endless convalescence.

Sherlock was starting to toss papers in the air with increasing irritation. John tried to ignore the wave of frustration he felt coming from the general area of the sofa and sat down at his little breakfast table with his laptop. Time to catch up on his email. He had found his mobile and plugged it in to charge, battery quite dead.

There was a period of quiet punctuated by dramatic groans, exclamations of disgust and sighs of boredom by Sherlock as he discarded the entirely unworthy contents of their accumulated mail.

Other than junk email, John had received one short one from Harry, attaching photos of her and Gillian on their African safari (and telling John to ignore Gillian, they were broken up already); and one from Sergeant Sally Donovan, dated yesterday: "I’ve left messages. Your mobile’s switched off. Please ring me. Lestrade told me you’re memory’s back. Champion for you and all that. I’ll explain when I see you. Don’t say anything to Sherlock Holmes or Lestrade."

John shut his laptop, frowning with concentration. Was Sherlock in some sort of trouble with the Yard? Was Lestrade? Sally Donovan was no fan of Sherlock Holmes. Whatever it was, had to be quite serious for her to want to see him privately.

He grabbed his jacket and his mobile, charged to a single bar. "Look, we need milk, I’ll just pop out to Tesco, right?" He said. Sherlock gave a vague wave in his general direction but otherwise paid him no attention whatsoever. One of the letters apparently had some features of interest. John shut the door quietly behind him and went down into Baker Street.

* * *

The closest John had to a local was The Gunmaker’s in Aybrook Street (he had liked it better when it was the William Wallace, though). He took himself off there for a quiet pint, feeling increasingly comfortable in the London streets. The Gunmaker’s was a busy, cheerful pub in a red brick building, with a swinging sign bearing the frowning yet reassuring visage of Winston Churchill. Gun cases on the walls contained interesting old guns and cartridges. The Winston Churchill theme carried on inside with old black and white photos of the great man hung upon the old wooden paneling. On the way he rang Sgt. Donovan.

"Look, Donovan, it’s John – what’s this about?"

"Welcome back. Look, I can’t talk. Where are you?"

"My local. The Gunmaker’s in Aybrook Street. I can stay maybe half an hour."

"Don’t move. I’ll be there." The line went silent.

John put aside his apprehension for a moment, then joined in the general scorn being heaped upon the Middlesbrough, The Boro losing to Newcastle United. Sergeant Donovan entered the pub, ignoring as she always did with her flinty composure the lascivious interest following her to the back. She held out her hand and shook John’s.

"Heard about Yorkshire, that long shot. Well done you, then," she said.

John looked at her, waiting. She fiddled with her pint, not seeming to know how to start.

"Look, Sergeant Donovan – "

"Oh, bloody hell, let’s just forget all that. Call me Sally. I can call you John?"

John nodded easily.

"That’s all right then. Look, I won’t beat about the bush. I know about Detective Inspector Lestrade."

John stared at her with what he hoped was a good poker face. Sherlock had more than once told him that he didn’t actually possess one, but Sherlock’s perception was of a different order of magnitude altogether than ordinary mortals, even mortals who were with the Yard.

"Don’t give me that look, John – what is that look? Don’t mess me about, all right? I know he’s in love with you."

"I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Sally, even if it were true — which I don’t flatter myself that it is," he said smoothly, taking a deep pull on his own pint. Where could this possibly be going? Did Sally want Lestrade for herself? What was the emergency? He winced. This was not going to be good.

"Look, he won’t call Sherlock in for any more cases. Ever. He – doesn’t want you to get hurt. He says Sherlock keeps putting you in harm’s way – and if he has to keep Sherlock out of Yard cases to keep you safe, then that’s what he intends to do. You heard Dimmock was transferred, right? So. If Lestrade won’t call Sherlock in, we’ll never be getting his help. Or yours," she added generously. John wasn’t fooled.

"I didn’t think you appreciated Sherlock’s help," he said. "So what’s the problem?"

Sally dug in her handbag and withdrew an envelope.

"You have to make Lestrade change his mind."

They both looked at the envelope. She pushed it towards him across the table. He knew he could just walk away. Lady Holmes had begged John to return to practicing medicine: to give himself have some peace, some time away from danger after the horrors of Afghanistan and the Rexworth murder (in which he had been the prime suspect).

But almost without thinking, his fingers, steadily enough, grasped the envelope and he looked inside.

The first photograph was of a woman’s body, dumped in an alleyway. She was wearing some sort of short white nightgown or negligee, and her face had some smeared makeup that made it hard to distinguish her features. But there was a lot of crusted blood around her mouth. And distinctive bruising about the throat. Marks around the wrists and ankles, too. He felt a wave of resigned sadness mixed with revulsion. So much death, so much cruelty. He had seen a lot of senseless, cruel death; and it didn’t shock him as much as perhaps it once did. The only way this woman could be helped now was to catch the bastard that did it. He took another swallow from his glass.

There was another photograph in the envelope. At first, he thought it was just another view of the same victim, but then he noticed that this body was laying in a grassy area. Otherwise, it looked like the same woman, same injuries.

There was a third photograph, but suddenly he didn’t want to look any more. He passed the envelope back to Sally, who looked at it grimly before pushing it back.

"I guess there’s a third one in there," he said flatly.

She nodded. "Look, I want you to take these. And I need you to talk to Lestrade. Because this one’s really bad. We’ve got a serial killer. And unless we have Sherlock’s help, I don’t know that we can stop him."

John just looked at her, realizing how very much it must have cost her to come to him like this.

"No leads, then?"

She shook her head. "Not the ghost of a lead. Bodies are clean. Dumped in remote areas. Nobody saw anything. These women . . .were prostitutes. No one reported them missing. The most recent victim was two days ago."

He knew they were under intense pressure to prevent a fourth murder. Sally looked exhausted.

Did he want to involve Sherlock in this, now? He could just walk out of here, give the photos back to Sally, keep his mouth shut. Didn’t they deserve some peace, just for a while?

The image of the helpless women’s bodies lingered in his mind. A terrible end, captive, brutalized, tossed away like rubbish. A sadistic killer. Who wouldn’t stop.

And if the Yard couldn’t stop him, there was only one other chance.

Sherlock Holmes.

He sighed. He knew what Sherlock would want.

"I’ll speak to Lestrade," he said finally.

Sally didn’t smile, but she pressed her hand on his arm in gratitude. A little slump of her shoulders told how much strain she was under, how much strain they all must be under.

"Thanks, John. Look, I’m really glad you're better now, okay? Really. Anyway, I’ve got to get back to it. Don’t wait, will you?" She left, shouldering her way through the shouting crowd.

The Boro just lost.

* * *

John left a message for Lestrade that he needed to see him. He was not surprised that it went straight to voicemail. Not while Lestrade was in charge of serial murder investigation. Then John firmly put it out of his mind, realizing that it was, after all, Lestrade’s work; nothing he hadn’t done before. Sally’s discouraged desperation was possibly misplaced. Lestrade had certainly been known to solve cases without resorting to Sherlock; his star was on the rise in Scotland Yard.

He returned to 221b to find Sherlock glued to his mobile.

"There’ve been three women murdered in the past three weeks," Sherlock said, sounding resentful. "They aren’t wanting to call it a serial killer, but it’s obvious where this one’s going. Why Lestrade doesn’t call me in, I can’t imagine. He’s heading up the investigation, it says so."

"Look, Sherlock, just for a day or so, can you just leave it?" He said, gently enough.

Sherlock opened his mouth to begin his habitual insults upon the ineptness of Scotland Yard, and how very necessary his own unique brilliance would be to solving this particular case. Then he saw John’s serious face, and mistook it for distress at his having immersed himself again so quickly into the very grimmest face of London crime. He shut his mouth and tossed his mobile aside.

"Well, never mind," Sherlock said. "Look, John, forget I mentioned it. What shall we do? Are you hungry?" He had been patiently nursing John back to health since his injuries in Afghanistan, and was proud that he now easily remembered that John needed to eat more than once every 48 hours. He thought John looked very well, after their recuperative spell in Yorkshire.

John looked at the spotless kitchen. He didn’t want even to cook in it for fear of ruining its perfection. "Thai?" He said hopefully. The murders, and Lestrade, could wait a few more hours. One thing he had learned very well in his years fighting in Afghanistan, trying to save men in Afghanistan, was only to worry about something when he absolutely must.

Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof.

* * *

They enjoyed a delightful meal at the little Thai restaurant up the street, washed down with cold Chinese beer, savoring the spices after the wonderful but somewhat bland traditional Yorkshire cooking at Riddleston Hall. Then they took a walk around their Marylebone neighborhood, just soaking up the sights and sounds of the city after so long away.

It was something close to five months that they had been away, mostly due to his long convalescence in hospitals in Afghanistan and England after suffering a grave abdominal wound in an explosion in Afghanistan. He felt the same magnetic pull of the city as he had upon his original return to London more than a year ago, when Stamford had quite accurately said that he couldn’t bear be anywhere else. Well, except Afghanistan, he admitted, while acknowledging to himself that he would never set foot on that blood-soaked soil again. That part of his life, while it would never leave him, was part of him, was finally over.

They strolled down streets that all those months ago they had run down, chasing the wicked cabbie, laughing all the way back. He smiled. How foolish he had been to wait so long to let Sherlock into his heart, back then. Another thing Afghanistan, and even the temporary loss of his memory had taught him, was not to let time slip away. Life was short.

He guided Sherlock firmly back to 221b.

* * *

Sherlock was kissing John gently but persistently all they way up the stair until John had to pant, "Wait, Sherlock, let’s get inside, why don’t we," remembering Mrs. Hudson’s remark about having heard them. Before. When he was stronger.

He pulled Sherlock back to his bedroom and firmly shut the door. It was very dark; the curtains were drawn. Sherlock let him push him down, passively sitting on the edge of the bed, but John could hear how aroused he was from his breathing, seeming loud in the dark.

He felt better in the dark. When he couldn’t see his own terrible scars, it helped him to forget that he had recently been a virtual cripple. When it was dark, it was just him and Sherlock, the love and the desire. How lucky he was to be here, to be able to touch, to hold this man who was beloved beyond everything he had ever felt or wanted in his entire life; the loss of whom had literally driven him right out of his mind.

He knew Sherlock was waiting for a sign from him, and so he reached out to kiss him, harder than Sherlock had expected, and they both fell back onto the sheets. Sherlock eagerly pressed back, and just like that John could feel Sherlock’s pent up desire spilling over. Making love to Sherlock was like experiencing a violent storm, you had to hold on tight to get through the other side. And so he held him down, restraining him just a little, and stopped.

"No, just me," he said, holding a finger against his lips in the dark as he forced Sherlock to submit to just his mouth, his tongue. If he let Sherlock have his way, everything would be over in a flash. And that was definitely not the plan. Not tonight. He removed their clothes, not allowing Sherlock to hurry him. After a time of torturing Sherlock by ravishing him with his hands and mouth, he realized he really was feeling stronger.

Very strong, in fact. And he had every intention of pressing this new advantage. Sherlock having offered himself up as a sub had been not entirely unexpected, but John was continually aware that this dynamic between them was poised on a knife’s edge that threatened to slip out of control.

He flipped Sherlock over.  Sherlock’s slight writhing meant that he was desperate for the crop, wanting that sting, that burn. He had become a great deal better at discipline, and did not beg. Even in the near blackness, though, John was poised to give it to him, overwhelmed by the desire to give Sherlock everything he craved, even when was too much, even for him. Why hold back? Life was short.

But as he went to bind Sherlock’s wrists to the bedpost, he had a very unwelcome flash from the photos Sally had shown him, photos that were folded even now in his jacket pocket. And the horrible, pathetic bruises around the women’s wrists and ankles.

He stopped.

Sherlock was whispering something, but John blocked it out as he tried to shut out the ugly images. Instead, he flung himself over Sherlock, pressing himself against the long length of him, kissing his neck and then his lips with all the love and tenderness that he possessed. And tied him up anyway.

He felt Sherlock almost relax as he anticipated the lovely punishment to come, and so he whispered into his ear, "Sherlock, I want you to understand something.  I think that for now, there’s been enough pain for both of us. I’m going to teach you something different."

Sherlock was keen with desire now, and all he could manage was a strangled, "Yes, whatever it is, whatever you want, yes, do it, just do it all, now," straining under his hands, craving whatever John would give. He smiled to himself in the dark. He finally felt he was strong enough for this, the most difficult lesson of all. After stroking Sherlock for a long time, rubbing him thoroughly with lube, he finally entered him, covering his body with his own, and he withheld himself by inches, forcing Sherlock to submit to the experience of being ever penetrated ever so slowly. It had been a long time, and he was tight. 

Sherlock craved experiences that were extreme – rough, hard, fast, and painful. Taking anything slowly was seemingly contrary to his nature. John knew better.  He could feel from the flinching and shivering of Sherlock’s body that he was in an agony for John to take him harder, faster. But John had bound him very securely. He would submit, no matter how he begged. And soon he was begging, please, please, harder, he couldn’t take it, this slowness, this tenderness. John ignored his pleas, finally silencing him with a threat to gag him. At this, he groaned into the pillow, but lay still. John stroked him steadily and hard, and very slowly. He didn’t care if this took hours.

"I love you, I love you like this, I love you so," he whispered against Sherlock’s neck.  "This is what you really need. Just let it happen, don’t fight me so." He felt Sherlock’s muscles finally stop straining against him, starting to melt back against him to the rhythm John required of him. Nothing could express how treasured, how precious, he was. And so he told him, and Sherlock permitted himself just to be slowly loved, no pain, no hurt, just this voluptuous tenderness until they both came under the tide of light that swept them up, gently and powerfully, together.

* * *

The next day, as Sherlock was updating The Science of Deduction, John slipped out to meet Lestrade.

It was time for Lestrade to learn a lesson as well.

But this one, John knew, would hurt.

To be continued. . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Readers curious about John and Sherlock's D/s relationship may find my fic "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know: A Frankenstein Tribute" of interest, although it is otherwise not necessary to the story that follows.


	2. A Precarious Truce.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Two. A Precarious Truce.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 2,200  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.　  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In The Footsteps Of The Master. Chapter Two.

John went straight to Lestrade’s flat, in a modern glass building in the City. The streets were thronged with workers going to their offices. It was still relatively early and Lestrade had been working grueling hours on the case. He said he could spare some time for John, though, if he could kindly come around to his flat as he couldn’t come to Baker Street.

John didn’t mention that the last place he wanted to have this talk was in Baker Street.

Lestrade rang him through and he took the elevator up to the top floor, where Lestrade had left the door ajar. He was drinking tea and fastening his tie. The flat was as usual spotless, tastefully decorated in modern leather furniture and carefully chosen black and white architectural photographs. It suited Lestrade completely.

The flat had walls of glass windows that went from floor to ceiling and had a modest view of office buildings by day; he had only been there at night once, dinner cooked by Lestrade while Sherlock was in hospital after a cocaine overdose. He recalled that at night, the city lights through the dark windows were mesmerizing. He pushed this memory away.

John was holding the envelope with the photos from Sally in his hand and he reminded himself that this was not a social visit – the murder victims were really what this was about.

Lestrade was serious, exhausted-looking, but his face lit up briefly, as it always did when he saw John. He poured him a cup of tea – properly made, not a teabag– from his well-equipped kitchen. Having finished with his tie, Lestrade invited John to sit at the little glass dining table. He was looking at the envelope with his detective’s eyes.

John cleared his throat. "Ah, Lestrade, there’s something I need to say. To you."

Lestrade’s face fell. He had been waiting for this for a long time. The longer that it had never actually happened, the more he had clung to false hopes. But he wasn’t going to help John do it. He tried to look puzzled.

"What are you talking about, John?"

Their eyes met. Despite his gruff, cool exterior, Lestrade could never hide his feelings for John, especially this close to him. He refused to look away. He just let John see it. Know what he was doing.

John had the grace to look away.

"Lestrade. This has to stop now. You know what Sherlock and I are to each other. That can never change. You’ve got to let it go. You can see that, can’t you?" He ended, somewhat uncertainly. Lestrade was frowning.

"Never change? Never, ever, change? Not that long ago, you didn’t know who Sherlock Holmes actually was. Did he ever tell you how many times I tried to come to you in hospital, in Afghanistan? And here in London, when you were in hospital here?"

John was astonished. Lestrade had tried to come to Afghanistan? No, Sherlock never had told him that. And he hadn’t asked, had never thought to ask. He was ashamed.

"I didn’t think so. And I suppose he never told you that the first day you came home to the flat, I had a man posted outside 221b. So I could see you when you were discharged. But Sherlock made me promise to give him a month to get you settled before you saw anybody that would – what did he say – upset you."

John was silent. "I think," he finally said carefully, "that Sherlock was trying to protect me."

"I spoke to your doctor, you know. Dr. Nazimi. She said that there was nothing to stop you from seeing me. She even thought it would be good for you. She didn’t say anything about your condition, of course; I just told her what Sherlock had told me himself - that you had amnesia. But by then, I’d made a promise to Sherlock to keep away, and I decided to keep that promise. I always do, John.

"So you see, he wasn’t trying to protect you. He just wants you all to himself and he doesn’t care how he does it. Maybe, just maybe, if you had seen me earlier, your memory would have come back. Thank God it did, anyway."

John was getting angry now. "Look, Lestrade, this isn’t about Sherlock. This is me, John, asking you. I know that Sherlock is — well, no one knows Sherlock better than I do. This is me, asking you please, as a friend, let it go. It can never happen. With us. I can’t. We can’t. That’s it."

His heart was pounding in his chest, which surprised him and made him very uncomfortable. This was a lot harder than he had thought it would be. He had rehearsed the words over and over, fretting almost all night over it. And now that he said them, it sounded hollow, cheap even. He knew he was throwing away the love of a very fine man. He thought that was really what he should be saying. They shouldn’t be talking about Sherlock at all.

Lestrade shrugged. "You think you know him. There’s a lot you don’t know," he said darkly.

"Stop it, just stop it, all right. I don’t want to fight about Sherlock, Lestrade, you’ll make me do something I’ll regret," his voice was rising now and he was getting angrier. Lestrade didn’t bat an eye, though.

"Did you know I investigated him - twice? He was my prime suspect. In some very, very gruesome murders. He doesn’t even pretend he’s not a complete sociopath."

John’s mouth gaped. He could not remotely conceal his astonishment. This, he had never heard. When he first met Sherlock he had jokingly asked whether people often thought he was the murderer, and Sherlock had just laughed it off. And no less authority than Sally Donovan had warned him that same day that one day, Sherlock would be unmasked as a killer. Because someday, solving crimes wouldn’t be enough.

Sherlock got bored.

John shook his head. "I don’t want to know about it. He’s walking free, isn’t he? You never pinned anything on Sherlock, he hasn’t done anything. He told me about that, anyway," he fibbed.

Lestrade looked him in the eye and shook his head pityingly. "No, he most certainly didn’t. Because he never knew. I never told anyone, until I told you just now," he said.

John’s hands were clenched into fists. "How dare you accuse him then, behind his back. That’s very low, Lestrade."

Lestrade rubbed his chin, remembering when John had punched him in the face, for kissing him while he was handcuffed and unable to do anything about it. Anything except kiss him back, hard – something that John clearly didn’t want to be reminded of.

Lestrade decided that if John was going to give him the ultimate heave-ho, there was no reason to hold back. He intended to fire at will.

Maybe something would stick.

"Do you really understand what a sociopath is, John? I want you to know that I do. I have to. It’s part of my job. In fact, without them, I wouldn’t likely even have this job. I wish I could make you open your eyes. Because if you did, you might understand the position you’re in a little better. Charming, of course; seductive, aren’t they? They have to be – if they weren’t, no one would tolerate their immorality. Their deceit.

"Rules that apply to everybody else, don’t apply to them. They’re special. More special than you and me. They do whatever they want, consequences be damned. They lie, cheat and manipulate to get what they want, do whatever they want. There are no limits with them. They make no apologies – because they are never wrong. They are possessive and controlling when they have something that they think is theirs, that they are entitled to. If – or when – they don’t want it anymore, it gets thrown in the trash, or destroyed without a second thought.

"And they get bored. Very easily bored. Bored enough to do very dangerous things."

"Damn you, Lestrade, keep your psychoanalysis to yourself. I don’t want to hear any more, do you understand? If you ever speak another word against Sherlock, I will never speak to you again. I’ve told you and I’ll tell you again. I love Sherlock. I’ll never leave him. Nothing can change that. I don’t believe he will ever leave me. I care about you, more than you probably believe right now. So please listen when I say — you can’t keep doing this, you have to let it go."

"You can’t even say it, can you? I can, though. I love you. John, I do. I do, and I’m not afraid to say it. I’ve loved you all this time, and I won’t give it up. I want you to think about that. Nothing you can say can change the way I feel. And it sounds like nothing I can say will change the way you feel.

"So where does that leave us, John?"

They just looked at each other: John very angry and yet, hurting in a way that he refused to examine; Lestrade hurting too, but defiant.

"Leave it alone, Lestrade. If you know what’s good for you. Now I’ll make you a promise. I won’t get involved in this case." He pushed the envelope over to Lestrade, who glanced inside and instantly understood.

"I’ll stay well out of it, you have my word. But if you need help catching this bastard, and I understand that you do — you have to let Sherlock help. Don’t let this – between us – stop you from helping these poor women. That’s what you do, that’s one of the things I most respect about you, you never stop until you get them, and you aren’t afraid to take whatever help you can get to do it. It’s all about these poor women, shouldn’t that be all that counts, Lestrade? So call Sherlock. Let him help you, and catch this monster."

Their eyes met over the photos of the abused corpses. John held his hand out, and Lestrade shook it.

"Truce?"

"Truce."

* * *

In another part of London, a tall, slender, dark-haired man was surveying an anonymous, shabby hotel room. This place was filthy, below him. It made his skin crawl to even touch the grubby furniture, the shiny bedspread that was almost greasy.

He had washed away the last tiny droplets of blood down the drain to his complete satisfaction. Multiple applications of a high-tech cleanser washed away any microscopic traces. He drew the blinds and shut out the light, and shone his portable forensic alternative light source (ALS) that revealed any traces of telltale biologic material. He put on a ventilator mask and protective goggles.

Then he began misting, with patience and precision, all of the room’s surfaces with fluorescein in a spray bottle: floor, ceiling, walls, furniture, deliberately revealing biologic traces throughout the room. The amount of luminescent trace was truly horrifying; he patiently waited for the glow to peak. He shuddered to recall that the substance was a suspected carcinogen.

He applied reagents to destroy the traces and surveyed his handiwork. Even he could not remove the ample quantities of dried sperm from innumerable prior occupants of this room, but now he was satisfied that there was nothing here to attract attention from a forensic team in terms of blood.

He himself, of course, had left no sperm traces.

He bent to carefully re-affix the carpet, which he had rolled back from the walls before he began, and re-attached it to the floor with the carpet nail gun and rubber mallet that he had ready in his duffle bag for this purpose. He brushed it to redistribute its inherent filth back to its original state.

He didn’t even look at the corpse, a woman, laid almost peacefully out on the bed and dressed as though for a romantic assignation in a short, white satin nightgown. Not for him the vulgar, overtly sexual, taunting poses of lesser practitioners.

She was no longer bound; ligatures were too valuable a clue to leave behind, although it would be amusing to do so. The corpse’s mouth was crusted with dark blood; the makeup so carefully applied at the beginning of the session was now inevitably smeared. He could not bear to touch them, after they were dead, to repair it.

Possibly he might switch to actual theatrical makeup. Not his own makeup; the colors were wrong for this . . .purpose. And there was no point at all trying to reapply the makeup while they were still moving, still alive.

Not once things had gotten past a certain point.

He was almost going to open the door to leave, was reaching with his gloved hand for the door handle, when he stopped and cursed himself for carelessness.

He had almost forgotten something.

He went to the bedside table and opened the drawer there. There was a Gideon Bible, a phone book, and a small plastic ziploc bag containing a bloody lump. In fact, a severed tongue.

This he withdrew with his gloved fingers and deposited in his duffle bag with the rest of his kit.

"Sharpen up," he muttered to himself.

 

To be continued . . .


	3. Making It Perfect.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Three. Making It Perfect.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 2,000  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.　  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

In The Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Three

 

Exhibit 'A' on a tray, what you say?

Ends up thrown in your face;

Exhibit 'B' what you see, well, that's me -

I'll put you back in your place:

Yeah, I've done it before

And I can do it some more --

So what you waiting for?

I saw you yesterday, been waiting too much,

Until it slipped through your hands;

And then you stagger to your feet and out the door

Cause there's no second chance.

Yeah, I was right all along

It's too late, it's too soon --

Or is it? tick, tick, tick, tick, tick

Tick, tick, boom

 

Lyrics to Tick Tick Boom, All Rights Reserved The Hives

 

John took his time returning to 221b. He went for a walk in Regent’s Park, wrapping his jacket against the cold autum wind. It looked like rain. He stopped at a pub for an early lunch. He didn’t want any trace of his argument with Lestrade to show in his face. Sherlock could always read it. He said he could, anyway, and so far hadn’t been wrong.

He had promised to stay out of this new case. Something he was glad, at the moment, to do. The pathetic bodies of the victims horrified him, and he knew that for now, he had survived enough horror for a lifetime. He had to admit that Sherlock had no boundaries in this area at all, except as pertained to his own self. Otherwise, no amount of gore disturbed him in the least.

To the contrary.

He would let Sherlock immerse himself in a new case, help Lestrade catch this killer, and he would find something else, something useful, to occupy his time. This was not actually a matter of urgency; Sherlock had secured their entire contract pay, with an additional sum in lieu of court damages, from Spartan LLC before it was forced into restructuring after the loss of its Afghan contracts as a result of the Monroe scandal. The amount was substantial, and while John intended that the money be put aside for the future, it was comfortable knowing that for the first time since he first returned to London, he did not have pressing money worries.

His footsteps turned toward Barts. He was a familiar figure, well liked, and no one stopped him going to the morgue. Molly was here, frowning and making little precise notes on a clipboard.

"Molly, hello, it’s been a while," he said. Her face lit up with her shy, self-effacing smile, which only faltered a little when she saw that Sherlock wasn’t with him.

"Doctor Watson! What are you doing here? You’re better now? That’s super! I’d heard you were back, but you’re not already on a case – are you?" She laughed nervously. "I’m not sure I want to know about it, if you are."

Memories of Jim Moriarty hung in the air between them. He felt terrible about her part in that debacle; the entire experience had been horrific but for Molly, there was an extra layer of humiliation that this kind woman did not deserve. Her only crime had been to be obsessed with Sherlock Holmes, drawing her unwittingly into Moriarty’s web of deceit. Sherlock certainly hadn’t been kind about it, he recalled painfully. Her nervous eyes showed that she remembered, too.

"It’s really good to see you, Molly. You’re looking well. I wanted to ask you out for coffee. When you can spare the time. I have something I’d like your help with," he said.

She nodded. She was genuinely fond of John. "Of course! Give me half an hour, though. I thought you were here for Sherlock Holmes, about the new one," she said, gesturing at the closed steel door of the mortuary drawer.

"The new one," he said, a chill enveloping him.

She nodded, her eyes huge behind reading glasses. "It’ll be on the news already, I should think. Another one of those poor women. You know. They’re saying it’s a serial killer. Of course, it is." She would know. She had seen the bodies.

John held his hands up. "Thanks, Molly. I don’t want to know anything about it, it’s nothing to do with me. I hope they catch the bastard. Look, meet me in the cafeteria when you’re ready, I’ll just be upstairs then," he said.

* * *

When he finally returned to 221b, Sherlock was gone. He checked his mobile, but had neglected, again, to charge it and it was dead again. But he was pretty sure he knew where Sherlock had gone.

He went to get his clothes ready for tomorrow. It was a big day. No more boring clinic work for him. He was going back into the battlefield.

The urban battlefield.

He was going to work in the Barts Trauma Centre as a consultant vascular and trauma surgeon.

He smiled and turned on the telly, where a loud game show attracted his attention, and he laughed until the tears streamed down his face.

* * *

Sherlock came back to 221b well after midnight. John was fast asleep. He had to be at Barts for an early morning shift. Sherlock, oblivious, shook him awake. John awoke, as he always did since their return to Afghanistan, with a confused start. It always took him a moment to reorient himself, to understand that he wasn’t being shot at.

Sherlock was framed in the hall light. He couldn’t see his face, but he could feel his agitation, his excitement. And in his excitement had forgotten not to wake John so suddenly. Something Sherlock hadn’t actually forgotten for months. So, he had been out on the new case, John thought.

"John, John – are you awake? I’ve been out with Lestrade, he’s brought me in on that serial killing. Of course, I knew he would. I’d read up on all the particulars. He was surprised, I think, how much I already knew."

"What time is it, Sherlock?"

"No idea. Very late. Or very early."

"Didn’t you get my text?"

"No. Wait. Maybe. Tell me what it was."

"I have a job."

Sherlock froze.

"A job. Whatever do you mean."

"I mean, Sherlock, a job. An actual job. I’m starting tomorrow. At Barts. Trauma surgery. God knows I’ve done enough of it. They’re happy to bring me on. Consultant, you know. Only a few days a week."

Sherlock was silent a moment. "Lestrade told me you weren’t to be on this case. With me. I told him to piss off. He said to ask you. Is this why?"

"Let’s just say, that I think with everything we’ve been through these past months — Afghanistan, Spartan, the Rexworth murder . . .I want to be well, I want to do good things. I want to help people: hopefully, living people. People I can actually save. So yes, I think on this one . . .I need to stand aside. Can you understand that, Sherlock? It’s nothing to do with you. With us."

Sherlock was very quiet. "If that’s what you want," he finally said softly. "You do want to hear about it, though? You surely don’t expect me to just – ignore you, tell you nothing about my work, do you?" He asked almost forlornly.

John reached out to hold him, to pull him into the bed. "Of course I want to hear all about it. Tell me everything. But in the morning. I have an early shift," he said sleepily. Sherlock threw off his clothes and climbed in the bed, hogging the covers and poking about with his knees and elbows. He was very cold; the weather had turned chilly. John snuggled in closer, ignoring the knees and elbows, and kissed him thoroughly before falling back asleep.

Sherlock did not sleep. His mind was processing exciting images, stimulating, fascinating him. With these intensely intriguing scenarios expanding in his brain, he hardly noticed John was fast asleep as he started to recount to himself each piece of the puzzle, how it all fit.

It really was looking very clever indeed, he had to admit.

* * *

Over a hurried breakfast of toast and tea, John listened to Sherlock’s recitation of the case as he pulled on hopefully presentable clothes that would soon be traded for surgical scrubs.

"First, there are the ligature marks on the wrists and ankles. Child’s play. Some kind of plastic zip ties. You know, zipcuffs, like Spartan had." Spartan had equipped them with the sort of thick plastic zip ties that were quite effective hand bindings on the battlefield. They were impossible to get out of and weighed nothing. "From this, we can deduce that the killer may be a soldier, or former solider. Or with the police. Riot squads carry them. Of course, the killer is probably doing this deliberately, wanting us to think that he is a solider or with the police. Misdirection."

John grunted to show he was listening. He remembered the zipcuffs. He wondered if he still had any of his Spartan gear. He hadn’t asked about it after he woke up in hospital, or since recovering his memory.

"The women all had multiple stab wounds. Inflicted before, not after, the bindings. Clear defensive wounds on the arms from the knife. Why does the killer bind them after the stabbing, and not before? Insufficient data, at present. But there’s no clear sign of sexual assault.

"Another interesting feature – the women were all strangled as well as stabbed. One could say there were two concurrent causes of death – the stab wounds and resultant exsanguination – and the strangulation. Clear bruising at the neck, broken hyloids. But the bruises are clean about the neck, they weren’t really struggling at the point of strangulation."

John frowned with disgust. "Sounds like overkill, doesn’t it? Stabbing, strangling? Both?"

"No, not at all — he’s just being thorough," Sherlock said arrogantly. "He’s very thorough. No blood traces on the body, other than the nightgown. Clearly he kills them elsewhere, dumps the bodies. We haven’t found the actual murder scene, not yet."

"I see," John said patiently.

"All of the women wore similar, not identical, white satin nightdressses that stopped just above the knee. The killer obviously provided this garment. He also puts some rather garish makeup on their faces, some sort of whitish face paint and red lipstick. Looks like kabuki, somewhat. I’m going to try and do some reconstruction of what it must have looked like before it was — disturbed. Anyway, the nightdresses – they were stabbed whilst wearing it. The nightdress is probably the most important clue."

"How so?"

"Because it means something very important to the killer. Of course, everything about the murder means something very important, to a serial killer. But without more data, it means nothing at all to us. Of course Lestrade’s been searching it up, but it’s a very common item, you can get it in any Marks and Sparks, they’ve stocked this item in various versions for more than a decade. Impossible to trace, probably.

"So what are you going to do next?"

"I want to search around where the victims were found. The Yard’s bound to have overlooked something. They always do."

John finished his tea. It was cold now. He didn’t want any more toast.

"The really odd bit is that he cuts out their tongues," Sherlock remarked offhandedly.

John didn’t have any more time, but this froze him in his tracks. "Please tell me it’s post-mortem, Sherlock."

Sherlock shook his head. "I’m afraid not."

John felt a fury rise up. He almost wanted to back out on his word to Lestrade. But Sherlock was the best help Lestrade could have.

"Catch the bastard quickly, Sherlock," he said with heat as he headed out the door into the cold London wind.

Time to go save some lives.

　

* * *

　

Several hours later, in a different part of London, in a very secret and private windowless room swathed in ultra-dark velvet curtains, a huge screen flickered with glowing images.

A single tall and slender figure sat in the sole chair here, watching the screen with intense, almost religious attention. He nodded to himself as he watched the film unfold.

A woman in a short white satin nightdress was staggering, clutching a long, sharp and bloody knife in her hand.

Her face was transfixed with horror.

She dropped the knife on a table and stared into the camera, which panned in close, her white face and carefully darkened lips frozen with shock.

No sound issued from her mouth.

"Slut," the man said with disgust as he rewound the images and watched it all over again. The ending was always the same.

That is why he had to make it right.

Make it perfect.

 

To be continued . . .


	4. A Visitation In 221B.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Four. A Visitation In 221B.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 4,000  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.　  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In The Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Four. A Visitation In 221B.

Sherlock and Lestrade were looking at autopsy photographs of the dead women. The four victims of the relentless killer that Lestrade adamantly refused to give a sensational nickname.

Lestrade hated raising murderers to any sort of dignity, or giving them the attention they universally craved by encouraging snappy names for them. In his mind, they were all the same, him. More properly called, "it."

They weren’t ever really human, not fully. Not the serial killers. Lestrade mused on this. Neurologists who studied these worthless bastards’ brains found that they were more deeply driven by their reptilian brain than normal people - that is, non-serial killers.

Of course other scientists disagreed, had different findings, different explanations. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was finding and stopping them; Lestrade had found that in general, theories about brain structure weren’t much practical help. But he did like to think of them as a species of reptile.

This particular reptile had removed these women’s tongues, severed, it appeared, by very sharp scissors. Poultry shears, Sherlock opined, and the autopsy report agreed.

Lestrade assumed it was just so the poor women couldn’t talk, and the bastard was a sadist; a gag wouldn’t do. Sherlock merely stared at the photos and neither agreed or disagreed with Lestrade. Which meant he had another theory – but wasn’t ready to share.

Lestrade didn’t feel like giving Sherlock much indulgence to wait for a big reveal, though. He wanted this killer, wanted him now.

* * *

With the makeup finally washed off in the autopsy process, it was possible to see that the women resembled each other to a truly uncanny degree. They might have been sisters. Two of the women were so like one another that they might have been twins.

The women were of medium build, good firm figures; not stick-like drug addicts like so many prostitutes. For all of these women had been prostitutes. They all had somewhat brassy blonde hair that had been recently cut to chin length and curled, rather inexpertly.

Sherlock was of the opinion that the killer had done this. Tests were out on the hair dye.

They all had makeup; some sort of white, cakey powder applied with a sponge, and a rather old-fashioned shade of red lipstick, applied with a brush. Someone had taken the trouble to pluck the women’s eyebrows into a thin, high half-circle. Lestrade commented, as Sherlock had to John, that the effect was somewhat Kabuki-like. Sherlock frowned, then shook his head.

"All right, Sherlock, time to earn your keep," Lestrade said. The Yard had actually finally begun paying a consulting fee to Sherlock after he solved his tenth case under Lestrade’s watch with his hallmark brilliance. He hadn’t actually insisted on this, and Lestade had a firm sense, especially after visiting Lady Holmes’ estate in Yorkshire, that there was a trust fund or some such limitless resource that provided for Sherlock’s minimal wants and freed him to devote his entire attention (when it wasn’t fixated on ruining John Watson, he thought, then told himself to knock it off) to solving crime.

Especially Sherlock’s most favored pursuit - studying and catching serial killers.

"He could restrain them any time with the zipcuffs, but he waits until he’s finished, waits until its time to strangle them. He does this almost as a euthanasia, after he’s done with the part that’s important to him, he just wants them still and quiet. Hence the strangulation. The really important bit is the knife," Sherlock said.

Lestrade was impatient. This wasn’t helping.

"What do we actually know about why he’s doing this to these women? How do we start to zero in on him? Don’t tell me the usual suspect – 25 to 35, male, unemployed or underemployed, no good relationships with women, lives at home with his mum. Just don’t even say it," he fumed.

"Certainly not," Sherlock huffed. "This man has resources; that much is obvious. He has a secluded place to bring the women and kill them. Probably the same place every time, but possibly not. If he kills them in different places, that is additional proof of his resourcefulness. He has the time to dress them, do their makeup, and put them through . . . whatever happens before they are attacked with the knife.

"He hasn’t varied his routine – he doesn’t make mistakes, doesn’t leave anything to chance. He binds them, strangles them. He has time and privacy to clean the body thoroughly. No trace evidence yet. No DNA, no fingerprints, no hairs, no fibers.

"He has enough privacy to bring the body away from the murder site, and dump them in remote areas. He probably scouts them out ahead of time – but no one has ever seen anything suspicious anywhere near the dump sites. He’s very consistent, very organized. He hasn’t made a mistake, yet.

"But the most important clue is also the most obvious. How does he find these women? These particular women?"

"What do you mean, ‘find’? The women were prostitutes. I imagine finding them was the simple part," Lestrade asked.

"But they look so very similar. These two could be twins – just look at them. How can our killer could just happen to find such similar-looking women in such a short period of time? Four murders, three weeks. He would have to be stalking the prostitutes haunts almost twenty-four hours a day to identify these women. And still it wouldn’t work. No, he has to have some sort of help.

"I’m leaning toward . . .an accomplice."

Lestrade groaned. Two killers. "How can you be sure? He could have been stalking these women. He could have chosen them over a long period of time, as you say. Maybe he just waited until now to kill them."

"No, that’s not very likely, is it? Think, Lestrade — how could he count on still finding these same prostitutes over a long period of time? Prostitutes are transient. And even if he did as you say, it still supports an accomplice. Someone to help him keep track of these women."

"Sherlock, don’t breathe a word to the press, to anyone, do you hear me? We’ll have mass hysteria on our hands if you start putting it about that this is a team of killers. Remember the Moors Murders."

He did. In fact, he and John had assisted in the capture of a murderer in Yorkshire, in those very same northern moors that the notorious Ian Brady and Myra Hindley had used as killing fields, more than 40 years ago.

He looked closer at one of the autopsy photographs. Then he looked at the others. "Lestrade, this is no good. I don’t know why we’re wasting time. I need to see the bodies."

Lestrade nodded.

Sherlock almost always found something that the coroner did not.

* * *

The bodies were brought out. Sherlock examined their pale, naked skins through his magnifier without the slightest sign of discomfort that his nose was within milimeters of a corpse. Finally, he exclaimed, "Yes!" and pointed at some cuts.

"Look, Lestrade. Look here. Look at this cut. And this one."

Lestrade looked. It was just another knife wound. All of the women had numerous stab wounds.

"Don’t you see? Look carefully, look at the angle. These were not made by our killer."

"What are you on about . . . not made by the killer. What do you mean?"

"These women all had a knife in their own hand at one point. He makes them fight."

"What the fuck do you mean? Do you mean what I think you do?"

Sherlock nodded. "He makes them fight him. With a knife."

Lestrade looked closely at the body. Then they pulled out each in turn, finding certain telltale cuts from the victim’s own clumsy wielding of a knife. In a knife fight, it was as likely that you could cut yourself badly than your opponent. Especially when you didn’t really know how to use one.

"They lose, of course," Lestrade said gravely.

"Yes," Sherlock mused with an unreadable expression. "They lose."

* * *

John was pleasantly exhausted after his first day at the trauma unit, and was quietly proud.

There had been two car accident cases, one quite serious, and he had kept a cool head and brought the patients back, pulled their broken bodies back together. They would survive, they would be fine in fact. He felt the unique satisfaction that comes from saving lives. The operating theatre team had all shaken his hand, and the head trauma surgeon had patted him on the back and invited him for drinks on Friday.

He waited a long time for Sherlock in 221b, fruitlessly trying him on his mobile. No luck.

He ordered Chinese takeaway, carefully opening the door for the delivery boy with his loaded gun shoved in his waistband, as he always did now.

He ate his fill, then settled in his chair by the fire to watch telly. The news was full of the serial killings, and he watched Lestrade preside over a press conference with skill and confidence. John thought he and Sherlock must be making progress.

Finally, his eyes drooped and he fell asleep in his chair.

Sherlock still did not come.

After about a quarter of an hour, John was so deeply asleep, his head tipped over on its side, that he didn’t hear the small, almost indistinguishable sound made when the heavy antique mahogany specimen cabinet against the far wall, where Sherlock kept old maps and dried bits of unmentionable body fragments from cases, slowly slid forward a few inches as though a poltergeist was pulling it away from the wall.

And after a moment or two, it just as silently slid back to its place.

John slept.

* * *

He finally woke up to the sound of Sherlock clacketing away on his laptop.

It was very odd to have Sherlock coming and going on a case, and not to go with him.

Despite the rewards of yesterday in the trauma centre, he found himself feeling pangs of loss that he knew just meant he missed Sherlock’s company, being his companion when he was at his most brilliant, most keen, pursuing a killer. There was nothing like it in the world, and the truth was he understood that he wouldn’t be able to keep away from it for long. It called something in him too, something Mycroft as well as Sherlock had instantly recognised in him the very first day that they met.

But for now, he had a promise to keep. A promise to Lestrade.

Sherlock was printing and pasting up on the wall enlargements from Google Maps of satellite images of the areas where the bodies had been found, overlaid on a huge, detailed street map of London.

"I cannot find any pattern at all," Sherlock said, his voice almost angry with frustration at not being able to find the answer. "Perhaps its just . . . random."

John decided it was time to distract him, just a little. He went to Sherlock and put his hand on the back of Sherlock’s neck, rubbing firmly. Sherlock was oblivious so he tightened his hand, pulling him up. This time Sherlock pushed back, restlessly.

He hadn’t slept since becoming involved in the case; before Lestrade had even asked for his help. His eyes had that unique shine that only came over them when he was obsessed with an especially intriguing case. To anyone that didn’t know Sherlock like John did, he looked under the influence of drugs, or maybe just a little – mad.

He sprang up from the chair and was kissing John forcefully, greedily, almost crushing John now with intense wildness. His teeth made painful marks against John’s lips.

He pushed John roughly across the room and up against one of the walls and just dove onto him, biting John’s neck, hard, hard enough to leave marks. Hard enough to draw blood. Hard enough to make John cry out in pain mixed with desire, which inflamed him even more.

He yanked John around until he had him pressed against the wall, his arms pinned, and was grinding hard against him from behind, pulling off his belt, dragging his trousers down. "Christ, Sherlock, slow down –" he protested, but Sherlock just pushed harder, actually was holding his head against the wall now with one hand while he ripped his own trousers down with the other. John’s heart was pounding at a million beats a minute, thundering in his ears, and he was overwhelmed by claustrophobia, never felt before with Sherlock, ever. He couldn’t stand to be pinned down.

Not by anyone.

And Sherlock was pinning him so hard, he almost couldn’t breathe.

He whispered roughly in John’s ear: "I know you were in Lestrade’s flat. Did you think you could keep that a secret?" He reached around and grasped John’s cock, hard despite his feelings of resistance. "And now I’m thinking it’s time you were taught a few lessons of your own, John. I really, really do."

John struggled back now, hard. "Get the fuck off me, Sherlock, now," he said, low and dangerous. Whatever this game was, it wasn’t going down.

If it was a game.

Sherlock didn’t move. "I don’t think I will," he said, pushing against him even harder, letting John feel him, understand what he wanted to do. It felt angry. Sherlock felt angry. It felt hard, and brutal, and hot.

And John almost succumbed, but couldn’t. "Sherlock. No. Not like this."

He twisted harder and Sherlock finally loosened his grip and they glared at each other, panting.

"I did it for you, I went to him for us," John said. "I told him to let me go, I told him it could never be. I only love you, Sherlock. I told him he had to work with you, I would stay out of the case."

Sherlock gave no sign of absorbing this information. He was still glaring at John, one hand still wrapped around John’s arm. Hard. "So you think you can just go to his flat, let him be alone with you, let him dictate what you will and won’t do, what I can and can’t do . . .and I’m supposed to take that? And I suppose this new job — it’s to what? Appease Lestrade? Please him? Really, John, is that how it is?"

John yanked his arm away. "Christ, Sherlock, listen to yourself. If you think I’m going to stand here and let you treat me like — like you own me, for Christ’s sake, you’ve got another thing coming. I did what I thought was right. I wasn’t trying to hurt you. If this is what this case is going to do to you, turn you half-mad, turn you against me, against me – I won’t stay to see it," he said.

Sherlock turned away.

John tried to ignore Lestrade’s words about sociopaths echoing in his head: "They make no apologies because they are never wrong. They are possessive and controlling when they have something that they think is theirs, that they are entitled to."

 

There was a silence, hot and furious, hanging in the air. John had a strong impulse to just leave the flat, go for a walk, but decided that he was going to stick it out.

"I’m sorry, John." Sherlock didn’t turn around but the words were perfectly clear.

John’s mouth dropped. He couldn’t remember Sherlock ever apologizing, especially not where Lestrade was concerned. It made him feel worse when he realized that Sherlock actually had a point; Lestrade had manipulated him into not working with Sherlock, which might be fine for the moment– but definitely was not what he really wanted. He knew that.

Now Sherlock turned around. His face was no less intense. "Forgive me, I shouldn’t have done that," he said, and held his hand out to John now to show him that the was anger gone. "I’m sorry, too, Sherlock. Never think about Lestrade. It’s only you, it will always be you," he said as he pulled Sherlock to him, and they fell down to the sofa in each other’s arms.

* * *

The witness was probably a little wasted but seemed as coherent as she probably ever was. Her name was Serena, purportedly.

"Let's take it again, shall we luv," Donovan said.

The woman was a prostitute, had been in London for almost a year. Before that, she confided, she had plied her trade in Blackpool, but with the economy so down the gamblers didn't pay for shite, she said.

London, though, was always steady pickings for an energetic girl like herself. She twiddled her carefully ironed hair extensions that looked like they needed an update. She was flashily dressed in the Camden Town market imitation of attire made de rigueur by the show "Footballer's Wives." Her white vinyl platform pumps were quite a bit worse for wear. Donovan was about to recommend that white was not possibly her best choice of footwear but decided it would not be taken the right way.

The woman was ready to start over, she was a little hyped up on whatever she had snorted a bit earlier, by the look of her reddened nose. But Donovan knew they couldn't afford to disregard even the most dubious witnesses. As usual the prostitution community (and yes, there was one), had failed to rally to the Yard's aid with information.

But this woman seemed different. She had a proper sense of outrage for these terrible murders of her sisters in crime.

"A girl didn't have to look over her shoulder in Blackpool, I can tell you that. Right friendly town, that. Maybe I should go back. Better that than end up dumped in an alley. The mad prick," she fumed.

"Yes, well, all sex workers are well advised to stay off the streets for now, until we catch them. Don't go with anyone you don't know and trust."

The woman looked at Donovan wearily. "Yeah, right. Haven't been back long enough to collect any regulars, have I?" She cried indignantly, rubbing her running nose. Donovan offered her a clean tissue.

"Thanks, luv, so kind. Well then," she started again. "It's like I said. I was out on the Gillman Road, busy enough about eleven o' clock. This would have been three nights gone." The night of the fourth murder. "It was getting pretty cold that night. It's better today, innit? Anyways, so I see this man pull up in a very posh car; maybe a Mercedes, I think. Silver. Very shiny. Dark windows, I didn't get much of a look at him, how could I, then?" She said as though Donovan were questioning her diligence.

"Did you ever see his face? Anything at all?"

"Not exactly. He had dark hair, Black maybe. It seemed long, you know? Not like a regular businessman. I can spot a regular businessman," she said proudly. "Or maybe just bushy. But definitely dark hair. He stuck his head out the window and called out to one of the girls. She went with him. I only remember at all because it was the nicest car I've ever seen on this street, I can tell you that," She gestured to encompass the seedy, graffiti-marred street. "I don't keep track of other girls' business and I'll thank them to keep their noses out of mine, right?"

Donovan asked, "Did you hear his voice? What did he say?"

Serena shook her head. "Lots of other cars going by, there was some music, too . . . there's that boy down the corner, thinks he's in that talent show on telly, you know the one. Didn't hear a thing, did I?"

"So how do you know he said anything to the girl?"

Serena frowned. "Why else would she get in the car? Girl's got to have some understanding of what's what."

Donovan nodded her agreement and took it all down in her notes.

"Tell me again what the girl looked like. The one that got in the car."

Serena impatiently and without much detail described a medium-build blonde girl in flashy streetwalker attire that could match one of the victims, or a million other women in London. No, Serena didn't know the other girl at all. Couldn't remember ever seeing her before, but then again she was new to this particular street.

"Are you absolutely certain you didn't catch the license plate on the car?"

"Course. I didn't look at that, I hardly looked at all. Like I said, it was just such a nice car. I wished he had stopped for me," she said without thinking.

Then she realized what she had just said, and put her hand over her mouth, eyes wide with fright.

* * *

Later that day, John was working at the Barts Trauma Centre and Sherlock was at home, obsessively reviewing other cases that might shed light on this particular killer.

Sherlock had arrived at a pretty full outline of what he thought the motiviation and the goals were for this very organized killer.

But there were always lessons to be learned from the past.

And so he was very focused on his laptop, fingers flying, and did not hear the almost silent slide of the specimen case as it glided away from the wall behind him. And did not hear the silent footfall of the tall, slender, dark-haired man who leaped on him from behind and overwhelmed him with a powerful anesthetic-soaked rag to his face, instantly subduing him. The man carefully pulled Sherlock's limp body from his chair, and dragged him across the floor, behind the cabinet, and into the hidden hole behind it.

After a few minutes, the figure returned and retrieved Sherlock's coat and scarf where they had been flung across the sofa. He put them on. He went to a mirror in the bathroom and checked his hair, mussed it a bit.

He put the cabinet back in place. The smooth, silicon coated ball bearing runners that he had installed under the cabinet worked like a charm. But you had to trigger them from the other side. Otherwise it wouldn't budge an inch. No one would ever see the hole behind the cabinet, either: the hole which he had carefully cut through the adjoining wall inside the flat at 223b. With the hidden panel in place, it would take very thorough forensic work to detect it. He didn't worry about that in the slightest.

By the time anyone ever thought to move that specimen case, the entire hole would be completely repaired, the concealing panel gone, and no one would ever know it had been there.

Now he sat down to work at Sherlock's laptop.

It was amazing, really, how close Sherlock Holmes had got. His timing was perfect, really. And what he saw there just confirmed all of his plans, hopes and dreams for the future.

Finally he had read enough. It was very dark outside now and misty, thankfully. The mist and fog was his friend, always. Doctor Watson would be returning shortly to 221b. Time to go.

The man stood up, practiced his walk, and went rapidly down the stair and out into Baker Street.

He looked down at the sidewalk and walked hurriedly down the block, where he hailed a taxi and disappeared into the London mist.

 

To be continued . . .


	5. A Wanted Man.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Five. A Wanted Man.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 4,000  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.　  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In the Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Five. A Wanted Man.

Sgt Donovan was squinting over the fine print in the hair and fibers report from Victim Number Four. She really needed to get some glasses. There was a preliminary match for a single hair found wound very tightly around the fingertip of this victim, found at the down-and-out hotel where she may, or may not, have died. And she was pretty sure she needed glasses because she couldn't believe what her eyes were telling her.

She remembered well the first time she met Doctor John Watson: "You know why he's here? He's not paid or anything. He likes it. He gets off on it. The weirder the crime, the more he gets off. And you know what? One day, just showing up won't be enough. One day, we'll be standing around a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there."

John just asked quietly, obviously rejecting the notion, challenging her: "Why would he do that?"

And she gave the answer that she felt was truest: "‘Cause he's a psychopath. Psychopaths get bored."

Psychopath, sociopath - she could leave that to the court forensic psychiatrists. Because she had something that was much easier to pin down.

This single hair belonged, unequivocally, to Sherlock Holmes.

So now it looked as if she was proven right, in the end. And it gave her no joy at all.

She went to find Lestrade.

* * *

Lestrade remembered well the case that he had just been involved in, in Yorkshire; someone, an accomplice of the real murderer, had quite clumsily tried to plant evidence on the victim’s body to frame John for murder. He closed his eyes, thinking furiously.

Could this be Moriarty, he thought; Sherlock had been his captive for a time, a year ago – easily he could have some of Sherlock’s hair, could have kept it for just this purpose. The entire murder spree might be some twisted plan of Moriarty’s to pin Sherlock for what were looking to be some of the worst serial killings since Jack the Ripper.

Or some other adversary, possibly, who had somehow gotten one of his hairs – it might be quite easy, to grab one off his coat, possibly. Of course you needed the root, the bulb, which this hair did have. Or someone with access to 221b might get a hair from his hairbrush.

Because this hair had to be planted.

First of all, because if Sherlock Holmes were a murderer, he would never be so careless as to leave an entire hair in the victim’s hand.

And second, because the first thing he thought when Donovan brought him this news was that if Sherlock Holmes went on a murder spree, it wouldn’t look like this.

He recalled the two murders for which he had investigated Sherlock, both exceedingly kinky crimes in private sex clubs. The killer had been caught but committed suicide before trial, leaving some lingering doubts whether he had really been guilty. Sherlock, in fact, helped crack the case after Lestrade satisfied himself that he was not involved. Those murders were nothing like this. And although he remained convinced that Sherlock did not have anything to do with those murders, he recalled that the entire atmosphere of them had seemed to him very – Sherlock.

But these murders, no. He had to honestly admit to himself that he couldn’t see it. They seemed clearly some flavor of hetero, notwithstanding that these crimes, too, were very, very twisted: he knew that the killer was a very angry and ill man, lashing out with extreme prejudice against weak and helpless women; women that had to look a particular way, women that he fetishized, dressed, made up. Women that he played with for a while before stabbing them, then choking the life out of them. A man who hated women’s voices enough to cut their tongues out while they still lived

And it was universally accepted by profilers that serial killers who used knives, but did not sexually abuse their victims, were acting out some sort of fury of impotence, the knife substituting for their own inadequate part.

No, whatever went on in Sherlock’s sociopathic - albeit high-functioning - brain, he was certain that these sorts of fantasies were not his.

And so his mind raced, skidding around the vital question – what did this hair mean, what did his instincts tell him?

Maybe Sherlock had an alibi. He had to. He didn’t want to think of what he would have to do if Sherlock didn’t have one. Right now, what mattered the most was that if this hair had been planted, that meant that this killer was a very grave threat to Sherlock.

Sherlock needed protection. And that meant, John needed protection.

Anything dangerous to Sherlock always ended up being dangerous to John.

* * *

He shouted for Donovan to bring the car around, and started out the door, calling John on his mobile as he ran down the hall. He radioed for the nearest officer to get to 221b immediately and to guard it until he could get there.

John answered with a stiffness in his voice that meant he was still holding their argument against him. Lestrade swore inside at his own stupidity, and knew he would have to deal with this later. Somehow.

"John, it’s Lestrade. Where’s Sherlock? It’s very important."

"I was going to wait a bit and call to ask you the very same thing. He forgot his mobile, it’s here in the flat. He hasn’t come home since sometime yesterday. Do you mean he’s not working with you? Or Donovan?"

"Did he tell you anything about where he was going?"

"Yes, he did mention going back to all of the places where the bodies had been found. He said he wanted to see if anything had been overlooked," John said. "But that wasn’t yesterday. I don’t think it was."

"John, stay inside and don’t open the door for anyone. I have an officer posted outside. Donovan and I are coming to you. I’ll explain when I get there."

"You’ll bloody explain now, Lestrade."

Lestrade was trying to speed through traffic but it was rush hour. He cursed his bad luck. "John, I shouldn’t tell you this, but I have to. I think Sherlock is in some kind of danger. And you are too."

"Just tell me now, I have to know."

"We found some hair evidence on the last victim. John, it’s Sherlock’s hair."

There was a long silence. "Tell me you don’t believe it, Lestrade."

"As it happens, I don’t. That’s why I said you were in danger. Our killer did this, and I don’t think Sherlock is our killer. I will probably be in the minority when my Super finds out, though. Just try and reconstruct for me, where has Sherlock been for the past four days? Can you do that? We’ll be there soon. You do have your gun?"

"Yes."

"Don’t open the door. But if anybody strange tries to get into the flat, you know what to do."

* * *

Finally they made it to 221b and Lestrade flew up the stair, Donovan close behind. The officer posted outside the door reported all quiet.

John was pale and serious.

"There’s no mistake? It’s really his hair?"

Lestrade and Donovan both nodded grimly. "There’s no mistake. Where has he been, John?"

John handed over a piece of paper where he had colored in red pen on a printout of a calendar the times he had been with Sherlock over the past week, and in blue pen the times that he thought Sherlock had been with Lestrade, working the case.

He had left white the blocks where he didn’t really have any knowledge one way or the other where Sherlock had been.

Lestrade and Donovan exchanged a look full of despair. During the timeframe that the fourth victim had been murdered, and the estimated timeframe that she had been held captive, the paper was white.

No alibi for Sherlock.

Lestrade sank into a chair and put his face in his hands.

Donovan said, "Sir, shouldn’t we pull the CCTV? That will help narrow things."

Lestrade nodded. Donovan muttered into her mobile. "I’ll just go get the laptop, sir," she said. They had a police-issue laptop in the trunk of their car. She left them alone, and stayed away longer than she really needed to; she could sense Lestrade wanted to speak privately to John.

"He’s out there, somewhere, working on the case. He’s just lost track of time," John said reasonably. "He’ll be back. He probably thinks – I’m at Barts working, he isn’t used to my schedule – he probably has no idea I’m here waiting for him."

Lestrade nodded. "You’re probably right."

There was a tense silence. John spoke first. "Thank you, Lestrade. Thanks for not accusing him. You don’t know — you don’t know how much it means. To me."

"John, about the other day — I was wrong to try and tear Sherlock down like that. I was out of line. Again. I can see how you feel about him. I just wish – you felt that way about me. I’ll try to live with that, John. You have my word." He looked away, didn’t want to see John’s face, that expressive face. Whatever he would read there now, it would never be what he wanted.

"Can’t we just keep this to ourselves? If you and Donovan are the only ones who know . . ."

Lestrade shook his head. "John, I don’t think you understand. We have this hair evidence. It’s been verified through the lab. It’s part of the chain of evidence now. It’s the single solitary clue we have. If I don’t have a solid alibi for Sherlock, a very solid alibi, the Superintendent is going to force my hand. He likely will, anyway. Cases like this have a life of their own."

John and Lestrade looked at each other. He pulled the paper out again, the one that John had put together of Sherlock’s movements.

He pointed with his finger at the key blank spot and met John’s eyes meaningfully.

John took the red pen and colored most of the white space red, except for the two shifts he had worked at Barts. He had witnesses to that.

And then Lestrade took the blue pen, and colored in the rest.

Sherlock had an alibi.

　  
* * *  
Sally came back with a discreet knock at the door. She set the laptop up and downloaded the CCTV digital video images from the surveillance camera at the end of their Baker Street block.

"Look, sir, it’s going to take hours to go over this properly, let’s just start with today and work back a bit."

A true analysis would require CCTV images from the cameras in the immediate vicinity to map the comings and goings of their target. Sherlock Holmes.

"Donovan, remember — it’s not just Sherlock we’re looking for. It’ll be the killer too, maybe. This may be our break. If he broke into the flat to get that hair, we may get him yet."

The CCTV camera was conveniently pointed quite clearly in view of the entrance to 221b and the sidewalk and street for a good distance on either side of the door, including the comings and goings from Speedy’s, which made things a bit more difficult during daylight hours when there was general milling about of people wanting their lunches or a quick coffee. Mycroft Holmes had, of course, something to do with this.  
They gathered around the laptop screen and Donovan expertly navigated through the program. Going backward, she wound back through her own arrival moments ago, then she and Lestrade; the police officer; then some pedestrians and customers of Speedy’s. Then the day was done and they were scrolling backward into the previous night. John returning from his shift at Barts, almost 10:00 p.m., fuzzy in the wet mist swirling in the street.

And half an hour earlier, Sherlock clearly leaving the flat, wearing his usual coat and scarf against the cold and damp mist; absorbed in thought and in a hurry, and looking down at the sidewalk, pacing rapidly down the block where he caught a taxi.

"Where is he going?" Lestrade asked what they were all thinking.

Donovan zoomed in on the taxi’s plates, difficult to see in the mist. "Sir, we need enhancement on that. I’ll get forensic on it." Donovan kept scrolling for the past 48 hours but saw no one that looked like a stranger coming to the door of 221b. They did note the takeout delivery boy and Lestrade instructed Donovan to follow up.

"We have to take his phone, John. It may help us locate him, tell us what he was looking at before he left. His laptop, too."

John felt strangely reluctant to part with these things. He felt very strongly that there was something very wrong. If that phone were to ring, he wanted to be the one to answer it. Lestrade watched his face and could read his thoughts there. "John, you have to trust me. I can’t let you keep these things. We’ll take good care, we’ll monitor the phone and your phone here, too."

John wasn’t sure Sherlock even knew the number to 221b. Suddenly the truth of what was really happening slammed him right between the eyes.

"This killer . . . he put that hair, Sherlock’s hair – there, on the body, that’s what you’re saying."

Lestrade and Donovan nodded. "But I have to tell you again, John, it won’t be what my Super is saying. We have to find Sherlock now, before this gets out of control."

"This killer . . . why did he do this to Sherlock? Is it Moriarty? God, if Sherlock doesn’t come back, does that mean – Moriarty’s taken him again?"

"John, calm down. I think Sherlock had a lead on the case and went to investigate. He’ll be back," he said with as much confidence as he could muster. John just looked at him, and wasn’t buying it. If there was anything that they both knew about Sherlock, it was that he never went anywhere at all without his mobile.

Now John was not listening to Lestrade anymore. He was checking his gun to make sure it was fully loaded.

It was.

"Let’s go," John said.

Lestrade and Donovan began to protest but at the look on his face, they both shut up. Lestrade knew if he didn’t let John in, John would just go it alone.

"All right. Come on then, John. I can’t let you stay here, anyway: I still think our killer may have been here, or may come here. You need to go somewhere safe." He almost bit his tongue as soon as the words came out of his mouth, he didn’t want John thinking he was going to take advantage of this. Donovan scowled at him. She knew him very well.

"I have somewhere safe to go. But right now, I’m going with you. I’m going to ‘assist the police with their inquiries,’" John said darkly, checking the safety.

* * *

A long time passed.

Sherlock awoke in a dim place. The air seemed stuffy and damp. He was lying on a bed, he realized. There was some flickering light and maybe some dim noise. A television, turned down low.

Not at home, certainly not; he could tell from the light, the odor, the silence, the temperature, that he was somewhere else.

Somewhere below ground.

He felt ill. He did a mental survey of his body and amended that to very ill.

Someone had been giving him some very strong drugs; hallucinogens, from the feel of his body and the overall disorientation of his fragmented mind. All he could remember was someone speaking to him patiently, trying to get him to watch something. A black and white movie of some kind.

In the movie, a woman in a white satin nightdress was staggering around, clutching a long sharp knife in her hand. She had wavy blonde hair to her chin; a pale face, dark lips that if they were in color, would have to be red. And another woman, shorter blonde hair, a different film, maybe, also in black and white. In this film too, there was the long sharp knife. This woman also wore white, but differently . . .then . . .she was taking a shower. And then, the long, sharp knife was plunging.

The voice was patiently trying to explain everything to Sherlock. But it just didn’t make any sense. The images didn’t make any sense to him, he couldn’t really focus anyway. He couldn’t stay awake long enough for anything to make any sense.

Sherlock had a high fever; he was dizzy and dehydrated.

He focused on the place that caused the most pain. Somewhere in his stomach was a burning, hurting him terribly. More than he was able to just ignore, and he could ignore a lot.

He put his hand down to feel, surprised that they were not restrained. He felt an incision with sutures there, feeling very hot and leaking blood and pus. It was infected.

He had no idea what this incision was for, but it was making him very ill. He brought his fingers up and smelled the infectious fluid there. Had he been stabbed? He didn’t remember.

If he didn't get help, soon, he was going to be very, very ill.

Maybe even die.

But if whoever had brought him here wanted him dead, he figured he would be dead already. But he was alive.

Considering the strange incision in his side, this was not necessarily a good thing.

He didn't scream or make any noises to call attention to himself. It was perfectly obvious that wherever he was being held, no one would hear him if he screamed.

Instead, he tried to orient his thoughts, and experimented with standing up, but a wave of nausea and fever took him over and he fell off the low bed onto the floor in a swoon.

When the light in the room became bright again, Sherlock was unconscious and thus did not see the tall man bending over him, frantically pressing the angry red weeping incision, literally biting his knuckles with dismay. The man was almost sobbing with frustration and fear.

If Sherlock died on him now, it was all for nothing.

* * *

After weeks of spinning their wheels, John’s fear and anger were explosive, and he was driven through the streets of London day and night to restlessly search for any clue at all to Sherlock’s disappearance. He kept in constant contact with Lestrade, sometimes going with Lestrade and Donovan on their explorations.

The surgery work at Barts was put aside for now. Lestrade let him do as much as he dared, and kept him constantly informed; but scrupulously did not push for anything more personal with John than their joint mission to find Sherlock Holmes, while constantly keepting his eye on John for any sign of . . .he couldn't really say. He even gave John a copy of the murder book, a disc loaded with images of what he and Donovan judged to be the most important evidence. When not in the streets interviewing witnesses and chasing down the ghosts of leads, John buried himself in the murders. He paid no attention to Lestrade whatsoever unless the topic was the search for Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock’s laptop had been wiped clean, as had his mobile. There were technicians working on reconstructing it, but they were in awe of the sophistication of the cleaning technique of the killer.

Only John, Lestrade, Donovan and of course, Mycroft believed that it had been the killer. But the official line of Scotland Yard was that Sherlock Holmes was a person of interest and a wanted man. Anyone sighting him should immediately inform the nearest police station.

He was to be considered armed and very dangerous.

Lestrade had forcefully argued against this, had pressed the alibi for all it was worth, just barely preventing a warrant for murder charges being issued against Sherlock. It was the best he could do. His refusal to follow the party line laid out by his Super put his own status in grave jeopardy, and only his record combined with his personal friendship with the Super prevented him from being taken off the investigation altogether. As it was, he was no longer allowed to head it up, and a sometime rival of Lestrade’s, Detective Inspector Allyn was brought to the fore. He was a very political animal, interested in reports and meetings and press conferences; and didn’t have the time or the inclination to keep tabs on Lestrade and Donovan. As far as he was concerned, the less they were seen about the Yard, the more exposure for him and his own hand-picked team. Out of sight, out of mind, was Allyn’s policy.

* * *

One of the first things Lestrade and Donovan did after the video was cleared up was to interview the taxi driver who had picked Sherlock up the last night he was seen, leaving 221b.

The cabbie had dropped Sherlock at London Victoria station, and sure enough CCTV cameras reflected dthat, but one key camera was unluckily malfunctioning, and he had become lost in the crowd. There was no evidence that he took a train, though. The taxi driver readily identified Sherlock from a photograph, although he recalled it had been dark and misty that night.

The CCTV cameras had been of no further help. They rolled the film all the way back to when John and Sherlock returned to 221b from Yorkshire and saw nothing unusual. Lestrade, Donovan and John all canvassed the locations identified with this killer; the places where the bodies had been dumped as well as the most noted streets for prostitution, hoping someone had seen something.

But no one had.

* * *

John was staying with Lady Holmes in her London townhouse. The need to be strong for her, as well as for Sherlock, was the sole motivating force of John’s being, now and kept him from going quite out of his mind. Lady Holmes had aged a decade from this tragedy, and clung to John and Mycroft, who by common consent tried to never leave her alone for long. While her youngest son had put her through many shocks in her life, this was by far the worst, seeing Sherlock’s name and photographs on the news, in the newspapers. A wanted man.

She no longer left the townhouse, and John gently turned off the television whenever he caught her staring the endless gossip of the talking heads, picking over the bones of this sensational unsolved mystery. He took her on walks in the private walled garden that her townhouse gave onto, protecting her with a threatening scowl from any neighbor who displayed the slightest sign of disturbing her privacy. The press hounded the townhouse, day and night, hoping to catch the elegant Lady Holmes, get her statement.

"Won’t you go back up to Riddleston Hall," John said, gently stroking the back of her hand. Her pale face in profile, drawn with sorrow, was very like Sherlock’s. "I don’t like to see you stalked by the press, those disgusting – vultures," he said heatedly. "They aren’t giving up. Why not go back up to Yorkshire?"

Lady Holmes shook her head. "I am waiting right here. For my son. The last place he was seen was in London. I don’t want to give anyone the idea that I’m running away from anything. If I go up to the Hall, they’ll all say, ‘Oh, Lady Holmes has gone into seclusion, now her son’s a serial killer.’ I can’t do that to Sherlock. No, I won’t go back until the same time I always do. December the tenth. Not a day sooner."

John looked out the window. He always did, hoping to see Sherlock’s beloved form coming down the street. So far, he saw him everywhere, every day, every hour. But he was always wrong.

"And I have you, Doctor Watson," she said gently. "So you see, I’m quite all right here."

John kissed her hand. "I’ll stay as long as you want me," he said.

"You’re all I’ve left of my son," she said.

John didn’t want to let that go, wanted to say, it’s not true, he’s alive, we’ll find him.

But she looked at him steadily with those eyes that were so like Sherlock’s, brilliant, clever, and he said nothing.

To be continued . . .


	6. Light and Dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THIS CHAPTER HAS INTERACTIVE PHOTOS AND FILM CLIPS. CLICK THE LINKS.**

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Six. Light and Dark.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 4,600  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In The Footsteps Of The Master. Chapter Six. Light and Dark.

 

_**One minute I held the key,** _

_**Next the walls were closed on me:** _

_**And I discovered my castles stand** _

_**On pillars of salt and pillars of sand.** _

_**It was the wicked and wild wind** _

_**Blew down the doors to let me in;** _

_**Shattered windows and the sound of drums –** _

_**People couldn’t believe what I’d become.** _

_**For some reason I can’t explain,** _

**_I know Saint Peter won’t call my name._ **

 

_**Lyrics to Viva La Vida, all rights Universal Publishing Group, Guy Berryman, Chris Martin, Jon Buckland, Will Champion** _

 

 

Sherlock was lying on the mattress, which the man had dragged onto the floor so Sherlock couldn’t fall and hurt himself. His fever was raging and he floated in and out of consciousness. He was barely able to gasp - "antibiotics, please, I need antibiotics or I’ll die. Get me to hospital, I need surgery. It’s getting worse fast now," between bouts of acute vomiting.

The tall, slender, dark-haired man paced frantically.

"You can’t leave here," he said finally, sounding brokenhearted. "I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. You have to believe me. It was too soon. I shouldn’t have given you the knife. Not until the drugs were out of your system." The man wrung his hands and was pacing faster.

"Ciprofloxacin – Intravenous – an IV drip – saline bags — injectable ciprofloxacin – Or norfloxacin – a lot of it. Please. I’m begging you," Sherlock croaked weakly, shivering. "I have peritonitis. Look it up — if you don’t believe me. I’ll die."

The man stopped. "You can’t die. We have so much work to do, you have so much still to understand. We have so much to teach each other. I’ll get the medicine," he said, no longer paying attention to Sherlock, thinking aloud. "It would be so much easier in London, though."

When Sherlock realized through the fog of pain and fever that they were no longer in London, he finally admitted to himself that John probably wasn’t coming.

Everything went black.

* * *

Sherlock was not conscious when an IV was attached to his arm and regular antibiotics as well as morphine for pain were administered intravenously.

Time passed.

* * *

John and Lestrade were deadly quiet. They had just finished watching a video clip sent to Scotland Yard by a tourist from, of all places, the Isle of Man.

The tourist had been out walking along the sea cliffs, quite late at night because he had had a fight with his fianceé. He brought his mobile in case she called to apologize. The moon was bright and full and he was fuming that he wasn’t enjoying a moonlit walk with his fiancée rather than roaming the sea’s edge alone. He tried taking some video of the moonlight on the waves with his mobile. Suddenly a tall man was running along the cliff, not far away, seemingly in great distress. He was wearing a long dark coat and scarf that flew behind him.

Without slowing down, he ran straight to the edge of the cliff, hesitated on the brink, and jumped.

* * *

"I contacted Scotland Yard because I thought he looked like that wanted man. That Sherlock Holmes chap," the tourist said earnestly. "It’s been on the telly like, forever. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry to waste your time. Well, not a waste of time obviously – Scotland Yard does look into suicides, right?" After being assured that Scotland Yard did look into suspicious deaths (tactfully omitting the fact that the Isle of Man was not within Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction), the man was permitted to make a written statement and the video was booked into evidence.

The video had been forwarded to DI Allyn, who thought it genuine. As Lestrade, however, was the most personally acquainted with Sherlock Holmes, it was given to Lestrade to determine its authenticity. Work had already been done to enhance the lighting and resolution of the video, and the image was quite good.

The running man looked like Sherlock Holmes. Quite a bit thinner than Sherlock, but it had been over four months now, and no one could say what conditions he had been kept in, if this was him. The coat and scarf definitely looked like Sherlock’s. The hair, the profile, all seemed right. Comparisons had been made with authentic photographs of Sherlock, measurements made.

The ocean and rocks below had been searched thoroughly by search and rescue teams, but as yet, no body had appeared.

There was a 90 percent likelihood that the man who threw himself off the cliff was Sherlock based upon computer analysis of the video.

* * *

John had been through the experience of believing Sherlock lost to him, dead, several times in their too-brief relationship, and he was finally unable to be anything but numb.

The last time he had thought Sherlock dead, it had driven him to a complete mental collapse and self-protective amnesia. His mind could simply react no more to such horror. It was as though his entire heart and soul had simply been obliterated, leaving behind an empty shell that had no more feeling than if he had been paralyzed. He remembered an old fairy tale that his grandmother had read for him when he was a child. In the tale, a boy’s heart was pierced with a sliver from an enchanted mirror, and that sliver turned the boy’s heart to a lump of ice, and everything that had looked beautiful to him before, now seemed ugly.

That was his heart, he thought.

"John, look, 90 percent chance means that there’s still a good chance, a strong chance, that this is wrong. I’m not giving up," Lestrade said, with determination beyond the reach of his extreme exhaustion. He would never give up. John would never forgive him if he did. He would never forgive himself.

John was lost for a moment, thinking of a strange item he had found going through Sherlock’s room. It was a black glass box. There was a place to put batteries but the batteries were dead. Sherlock never remembered things like that. When, curious, John had replaced the batteries, a long red digital number was running down backwards. He realized it was a life clock; one that projected when you would die and ran down how much time you had left, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.

Sherlock’s clock had been very, very wrong. Now behind his eyelids he always saw the unwanted image of those implacable, relentless seconds ticking life away.

John turned eyes on Lestrade that had nothing whatsoever of John in them, that seemed even to have changed color somehow to something darker. He shook his head and walked out of Scotland Yard.

* * *

One day – or night — the room was always dim and had no windows, no way to determine what time of day it was — Sherlock awoke without a fever, terribly weak, but without the agony radiating from the incision. He looked down at the area which was covered with a clean dressing which he pulled up, tangling the IV line a little. Under the dressing, the wound was still red, but no longer looked infectious.

He cautiously prodded it. Slightly tender, but nothing like the hard, excruciating pain of . . . before.

How long before?

Before he could replace the dressing, the man was back. Sherlock realized that he was being monitored through some hidden camera. The man pulled Sherlock’s hand away and replaced the dressing himself. He was wearing surgical gloves and a surgical mask.

"Don’t touch," he said behind the mask.

Sherlock looked at the IV drip. He had once killed a man by running him through the throat with an IV pole, in a bunker where an evil Spartan operative was torturing an wounded Afghan prisoner. The man noted his examination of the IV drip apparatus, and immediately pulled it away, taking the needle out of Sherlock’s arm.

"You’re well enough to do without this now. I’m going to leave water and food for you so you get your strength back. I want you well, believe me. I need you stronger. For our work."

"Work? Look, who are you? I know you know who I am. Are you doing this . . . for Moriarty?"

The man sneered. "Moriarty. That man . . .not in my class. Yours either, Sherlock Holmes. As for who I am, let’s just say that I’m the most important man in your life. You and I are meant to be together. You need me to do something for you. And I need you to do something for me. Just rest. But you need to do some homework to get ready for our work. You need to try and stay awake for this, it’s very important."

He bent over and bound Sherlock’s hands firmly with zipcuffs, but put a little remote control between his fingers. Sherlock was too weak to resist.

The man pulled a metal cart with a large plasma screen television close to Sherlock. There was a DVR attached to it.

"Start with the first film in the DVR. Push the second button on the right. Then keep going until you’ve seen it all. After you’ve watched, I don’t think you’ll have any questions. You’re Sherlock Holmes," he said respectfully.

Sherlock was almost going to launch himself at the man in a desperate bid to escape, but the man pulled out a Taser and patted it lovingly. "I don’t want to hurt you. Just understand that we are going to be very good friends. And watch the films," he said, and left the room, thoughtfully dimming the lights

* * *

Sherlock was not by any stretch of the imagination a film buff.

In general, movies fell under the large catgory of pursuits he filed away under "boring." But he had been captive for a long time and this was something for his brain to work on. His captor felt that these films were important.

Therefore, they were important to Sherlock.

Anything that would give him insight into how the man’s brain worked, who he was, what he wanted. Specifically, what he wanted from Sherlock. And he had as much as told Sherlock that the films would give him the answer.

The first film was a silent black and white. 1928. The title was "Blackmail." The director was Alfred Hitchcock. Now Sherlock sat up straighter and took notice. Ignorant of movies he might be, but everyone knew that name. It was associated with murder and suspense.

The plot was simple. A blonde woman is cheating on her boyfriend, who happens to be a Scotland Yard detective. She agrees to meet a deceptively charming artist behind her boyfriend’s back. The artist induces the blonde to disrobe, to put on a silly ballerina costume to pose for a painting. The blonde strips down to a short white satin undergarment, like a slip. She flaunts herself in the ballerina dress – which she can’t completely do up, leaving bare skin exposed scandalously for those times. The artist kisses her, embraces her, but she says she needs to go home. And finds that after she strips back down to her little white slip, that the artist has tossed her real clothes out of reach. And he then assaults her with determination, dragging her behind a curtain, where they struggle.   
  
Her hand reaches out from behind the curtain to find a long, sharp knife on a nearby table. And finally, it is the artist’s hand who falls out from behind the curtain, very dead. The blonde emerges frozen with terror, clutching the bloody knife.  
  
  
   
  
  
**[CLIP OF THE MURDER SCENE:]**  
<http://www.experiencefestival.com/wp/videos/blackmail-rare-silent-version-alfred-hitchcock-1929-murder-scene-anny-ondra/fjF6sGP9X4E>    
  
She leaves the scene, only to later find that she left her gloves behind, exposing her to a blackmailer. Her Scotland Yard boyfriend accepts her story that the killing was self-defense; the blackmailer becomes the second victim as he flees across the roof of the British Museum, pursued by the detective, where he plunges to his death.

In all of this, no voices are heard; the only sound is old-fashioned music.

The second film was also black and white, but with sound. From 1929, it was called, "The Manxman," also directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was a convoluted plot taking place on the Isle of Man, in which a blonde woman is engaged to a sailor who is then lost at sea.  
   
  
  
  
  
The woman has an illicit affair with his best friend, a distinguished lawyer, getting pregnant by him. The sailor is not dead, however, and he returns. She permits herself to marry the sailor and have the baby, letting her husband believe it is his. She really loves the lawyer, not her husband, and finally runs away back to him. After she tries to commit suicide, the lawyer, now a judge, the couple confess their illicit love. The judge is forced to resign, his career ruined; the woman is reviled by the villagers. The sailor’s heart is broken. He has lost everything in the world that he loves. There was no murder in this film, which surprised Sherlock.

Sherlock knew that there was only one reason that his captor wanted him to see this film. The actress in "The Manxman" was the same actress as from "Blackmail." Now everything was becoming very clear. The actress was named "Anny Ondra." She had wavy blonde hair to her chin in the style Sherlock thought had been common to those times; in "Blackmail," her face was made up with the pale powder, thin arched brows and dark lipstick common to film stars of the day. The white satin slip was familiar too. As was the long, sharp knife.

His captor was the serial killer.

And he had a strong fixation upon women who were unfaithful, deceitful.

He was choosing his victims, making them up, dressing them, to look like Hitchcock’s actress. Anny Ondra. He vaguely remembered hearing at uni, probably, the term "Hitchcock Blonde," but had some idea that it pertained to Princess Grace of Monaco, the former Grace Kelly.  
  
Here, though, was a Hitchcock Blonde from the silent film era.  Possibly the very first Hitchcock Blonde:  
  
.   
  
  
He cursed his bad judgment in failing to understand that a murderer might be inspired by, driven by, a work on film. He should know better, he scolded himself. Recent theories concerning the identity of no less a serial killer than Jack the Ripper pointed a finger at a painter of some repute named Sickert. Some of his paintings looked remarkably like photographs taken of the Ripper murder victims.  
  
If a serial killer could reference his murders in a painting, why not also film?

This raised an interesting question, that others might find painful to imagine, but which Sherlock simply considered as a point of valuable information. Did his captor film the murders? Balance of probabilities, he did, Sherlock decided.

He was terribly exhausted, just from thinking. He knew his strength was limited. But sleep was not an option.

He went to the next film.  
  
* * *

This one was also in black and white, from 1960. Thirty years later. The titles revealed it to be the instantly recognizable, even to Sherlock, Hitchcock’s masterwork "Psycho." (which even Sherlock had seen once – with Mycroft at a film festival when they were at uni together briefly - before Sherlock dropped out.) And so he fast-forwarded through the opening scene of Janet Leigh lounging with her boyfriend in cheap hotel room, wearing nothing but a white bra and white short slip, to the part that was famous – the actress disrobing to take a shower, significantly wearing a black bra, not the white one, while the proprietor of the Bates Motel, Norman Bates, watches voyeuristically through a peephole.:  
  
  
  
  
  
She enters the shower, letting the spray flow over her face and blonde hair. And then to crashing, nervous string music, a hand thrusts its way behind the plastic shower curtain, brandishing a long sharp knife, stabbing over and over until Janet Leigh falls, pulling the shower curtain down with her, her life’s blood flowing away down the drain of the tub as the camera zooms inexorably in to her dead eye.  
  
  


[ **CLIP OF THE SHOWER SCENE:]**<http://www.experiencefestival.com/wp/videos/the-famous-shower-scene-from-psycho/8VP5jEAP3K4>]  
  
* * *  
  
Next was a film Sherlock was unfamiliar with. "Rope," a Techincolor film from 1948, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The color seemed too vivid, almost vulgar after the black and white images. "Rope" told the true story of two best friends, seemingly homosexuals, who decide to commit a murder together to create a work of art - the "art of murder."  
   
  
  
  
  
They strangle a schoolmate with a rope and hide his body in a wooden trunk in their apartment — that they proceed to use as a buffet table for a party, from which they eat and drink, the guests including the victim’s father, as well as their professor.  
  
  
  
The professor finds them out, though, as one of the killers cries out, "Cat and mouse, cat and mouse – but who is the cat and who is the mouse?" .

Sherlock reserved judgment as to the meaning of this film. The killers were both men, as was the victim. They are sloppy and arrogant and rather easily caught. The strangulation of the victim might be meaningful, he thought. The women in the serial murders were all strangled after being stabbed.

He hoped that the meaning was not intended by his captor to pertain to the team of homosexual male killers and "the art of murder."

The final film was a black and white picture from 1951: Hitchcock’s "Strangers on a Train." A professional tennis player is approached on a train by a flashily dressed man. There is an undercurrent of sexual tension between these men.  
  
  
  
  
The tennis star’s wife is vulgar, unfaithful; but won’t give him a divorce, and he wants to marry a senator’s daughter. The flashy man also has someone he wants dead – his own father – and he proposes that they each commit each other’s murder. The film turns around the theme of doppelgangers – the murders as doubles, but also opposites of light and dark:  
  
  
  
  
  


  
  
Now Sherlock understood with clarity why he had been kidnapped, why he was being held.

His captor wanted a partner.

Someone to commit the art of murder with.

His captor’s victims were the archetypical Hitchcock Blonde.

Sherlock thought about this from all angles for a very long time.

Then, he smiled.

This was going to be a lot more fun than he thought.

* * *

Last orders were called and John reluctantly made his way back out into the street, Lestrade close behind.

John was in better spirits than he had been in weeks, Lestrade thought as they left The Gunmaker's. He walked with John back towards Baker Street and for once, John didn't question why he didn't stop at the tube station, or tell him he'd make his own way home, thanks. It was very cold and foggy and he couldn't see John's face. He would have given anything to be able to hold his hand. He thrust his hands in his pockets instead.

John went into the kitchen and withdrew a few bottles of ale, offering one to Lestrade but not meeting his eyes. Lestrade considered the options, and dropped into a chair that he didn't think Sherlock had been accustomed to using. He devoutly wished he could get John to come to his own local, his own sleek flat, where there the ghost of Sherlock Holmes did not linger.

There didn't seem to be anything to say that hadn't been said before, or wasn't irrelevant, even trite. But he would take silence if John would just let him stay.

John switched on the telly, low, catching the football scores, but seeming a little restless. After a while, Lestrade rose to go.

John surprised him by standing up, too.

"You're off, then, are you Greg?"

John never, ever, called him Greg. His heart beat just a little faster.

"Not if you want me to stay," he said.

There was a long silence. Lestrade just looked at John, feeling a different hesitation here than ever before.

John turned away. "Go, Lestrade, just let me be, will you," he said quietly.

Finally, Lestrade let himself be angry. Angry for all of the time that John had thrown away on Sherlock, angry at himself for not being strong enough to just let John go, or make him see sense. Angry at Sherlock for breaking the spirit of this beautiful man. Angry that John would rather punish himself with virtual solitary confinement, than let Lestrade help him. Angry at fate, in fact.

"John, you---- I know that you know. What I feel. I can't ---"

He stopped short of saying he couldn't take any more of this. He knew in his heart that he could take it, every bit of it, because he believed with all his heart that it all led to John, in the end.

"John, if you ever need me, you are going to have to tell me. You of all people should know that life is short."

He let the door slam very hard behind him and clumped off down Baker Street. He refused to look back to see whether John was looking after him out the window.

But his detective's spider sense told him that he was.

It started to rain.

* * *

Two more weeks passed. They finally got the DNA results of a skeleton that had been recovered from the sea off the Isle of Man. It was not, after all, Sherlock.

Lestrade crumpled the paper bearing this news and threw it against the wall. This news would spark in John a fresh round of hope that Sherlock was still alive. He himself had no such hopes. The serial killings had stopped with Sherlock’s disappearance. Everyone at the Yard believed Sherlock had committed suicide after committing these horrible murders. He did not believe this, but he knew Sherlock really was gone, and wasn't coming back. 

He couldn't bear to see John, to give him the news about the skeleton face to face. He beckoned to Donovan and told her that he needed her to give the results to John, let him know it had been just another false lead.   With a look of undisguised pity, she agreed; he gestured to the crumpled paper and she took it, straighening it and folding it.  He turned from her, rejecting her pity, and dove back into his caseload.

Twelve hours later, Lestrade was out in Hackney, taking a statement from a drug addict and sometime prostitute, who thought she had seen a man accosting a woman in the alleyway, two blocks from where the third victim had been found.

He was back in the car on the way back to the Yard with Donovan when his mobile rang.

"Lestrade. . . can you come?," John said.

"What is it?" He was alarmed. It must be the DNA results, he wants to talk about it, wants to be certain. His knuckles whitened on the wheel.

There was a long silence. "Greg. Just come. Please."

He dropped Donovan at the Yard and mumbled some excuse, he did 't even know what it was, leaving Donovan gaping after him.

* * *

Lestrade opened the door to 221b to find John pacing the flat.  
  
There were suitcases neatly packed by the door, the old Army duffle on top. The flat looked very empty.

"No, no, no, John, you can't." He was never letting John go back to Afghanistan. He would literally break his legs first.

John stopped pacing and was just staring at Lestrade now, the familiar haunted look still there, but something else, too. He took a step towards Lestrade.

"You're right, you know."

"About what?"

"Life is short."

Lestrade was crushed. It was true. John was going back to Afghanistan.

In two more steps John was with him, very close. He reached out and put a tentative hand on Lestrade's arm.

"I was going back." John said. Lestrade almost crumpled with relief at the 'was.' "But then I remembered . . .what you said."

Lestrade closed his eyes. So close. "If you remember. . . then you know what I need, John." He couldn't help the shaking of his voice.

Now John was putting his other hand on him, pulling him in.

"I do."

Lestrade didn't say anything. Inside, he was begging: Please, John, just one more step and we're home.

"I need you, Greg. Help me," John said, awkwardly but resolute. After a burst of disbelief mixed with joy, Lestrade only paused long enough to be sure John wasn't going to pull back. Then he took him firmly by the hand.

"Not here." He pulled him towards the door. "John, you're coming home."

He led John down the stair and closed the door on 221b.

His car was parked right in front Speedy's and they ran out into the rain, climbing in without words. Lestrade put it in gear, then before pulling out he was unable to stop himself leaning over and kissing John. He became so lost in this that he forgot they were in the car.

"Drive, damn you," John said roughly, "before I change my mind."

Lestrade floored it.

* * *

Lestrade didn't try to touch him again until they arrived at his flat. Lestrade stopped to look deeply into John's eyes, seeing the doubt there, before taking him by the hand into the bedroom. There he took off each of their wet coats and hung them up. It was very quiet. He went to the bed and held out his hand, but John went on his knees and laid his head quietly in his lap, and Lestrade just stroked his hair, damp with rain, softly at first but unable to hide from John how it trembled. He was afraid John might even weep, but he didn't.

"John, I'll never be him. But I love you, you know I've always loved you. And he's gone, John, you know it and I know it.  He isn't coming back.  It's only us, now."

After that, there was no more hesitating, Lestrade gasping triumphantly when he finally felt John's hands on him for the first time. Like we should have been, Lestrade thought fiercely, like we will be.

"Don't hold back, Greg," John whispered, his eyes glittering with tears.

  
_To be continued . . ._  
  
  
[Listen to Viva La Vida Remix HERE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfpGXpTRKgQ)


	7. Perfect Harmony.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Seven. Perfect Harmony.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 4,200  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

You read it in the newspaper;

Ask your girlfriends and see if they know -

That my strength is ten fold, girl,

And I'll let you see, if you want to, before you go.

It's quite possible that I'm your third man

But it's a fact that I'm the seventh son.

It was the other two was made me your third -

But it was my mother who made me the seventh son.

And right now you could care less about me -

But soon enough you will care

by the time I'm done.

 

Lyrics to Ball and a Biscuit, All Rights Reserved Jack White/The White Stripes

　

　

 

Sherlock was listening to his captor, the infamous serial killer. Who had been lecturing him for long time. It was not always easy to follow his rants. When he paused expectantly to see if Sherlock was truly following along, Sherlock had asked him politely if there was a name he could call him.

"You could call me . . . John," the man said earnestly.

Sherlock stared at him, almost more horrified by this than anything else. "No. Thank you."

"Then, you may call me . . .Pete."

Sherlock nodded. In the second silent Hitchcock film, ‘The Manxman,’ the betrayed husband, whose wife deceived him and had a baby with his best friend, was called "Pete Quilliam."

"And so, Mr. Holmes, I have been following your successes with Scotland Yard, reading Doctor Watson’s blog, and of course your own website - I wish you would work harder on The Science of Deduction, it would be a gift to the world. Where was I? Oh, yes. No one knows more about murder than you. I wanted to send messages to you so often - but that is always a mistake, I know that. There isn’t anyone in the world who would appreciate what I do, like you do."

Sherlock nodded his head. "Actually, I do know of someone else. I believe you indicated you are acquainted with the work of . . . Jim Moriarty. He would be quite interested in your . . . work. I don’t think you have really explored all of your options here." Maybe he could tempt this lunatic to become obsessed with somebody more interesting. Because that what it was - the man had the mentality of a stalker, unswerving, iron-clad fascination with Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

This had happened to him before, and sometimes had been very dangerous indeed. But no one had made him a proposal quite like this before: Last night, Pete had said to him, with every sign of sincerity: "You understand everything now, don’t you? I have a proposition for you, of course. We both need to cut our ties. With the past. After that, we’ll be partners -- in the art of murder."

Now Pete was frowning. "Moriarty – what do I care for him? I don’t want to talk about Moriarty. His motivations are too — mercenary."

"I would need to know a lot more about you before I agree to take you on," Sherlock said arrogantly.

If he knew anything about stalkers and the stalker mentality, he knew he had to keep Pete on the side of respectful admiration.

The alternative was rather dangerous.

* * *

"There’s nothing I can tell you that will tell you more than my own work. Mr. Hitchcock was the same way, you know. People would ask him, what did his films mean? He would never really answer, not properly. That’s because it’s all there. In the work. " Pete said. "Although even The Master made mistakes. But I have almost fixed all that now. We’ll create the perfect work of art, one that The Master would approve of. One that he would have done himself, if he thought he could get away with it.

"Because that’s really what it’s all about. Getting away with it."

 

Sherlock was losing patience with the endless lecturing. Pete had been circling around the question of his ultimate goal for a long time now, ranting along in endless manic monologues that left Sherlock exhausted from the effort of appearing rapt with fascination.

"You’ve certainly gotten away with it so far. Why not quit while you’re ahead – you know that’s how they all get caught in the end. A perfectly good series of murders, but then they go that one step too far and make a mistake. That’s how I catch them, you know." Sherlock said authoritatively.

Pete smiled broadly. Sherlock was struck by the superficial resemblance to himself – similar height, although Pete was shorter and wore shoes with a discreet riser to bring him up to Sherlock’s own height, dark tousled hair that was definitely dyed and which he imagined was blond, going by the color of his eyelashes. The brows were tinted too – but he had neglected to attend to the eyelashes. The eyes were blue, but darker and nothing like Sherlock’s. The mouth and chin were quite different. He was older by maybe five years, quite a bit thinner than Sherlock, too, with the look of someone who literally never ate unless absolutely forced to.

Sherlock himself had this tendency, but being with John had made him lose some of his more unhealthy habits. Thinking about John made his entire being ache. He hadn’t thought it possible to need him this much, to feel his absence like his own mind, his spirit, if you like, had been ripped away. Actually, he hadn’t thought it was possible to need anything this much, anything at all. This was saying a lot for a former drug addict. Much of the way that he had lived his life for a very long time – until John — was constructed around the very idea of not needing anything.

They had been parted before, once, by John’s long illness; but at least then, he could see him, touch him, talk to him. He tried not to think about what John was doing now; he didn’t really have any understanding of how long he had been gone. He tried to ask Pete but he always avoided this question and even once threatened to Taser him if he asked anymore. It didn’t matter.

Because no matter what he had to do, he was making it out of this alive and getting back to John. When he brought himself back to this, as he did almost constantly, he was able to keep going.

"When can I see some of your work, then?" Sherlock asked carelessly.

* * *

John was wide awake and lying in the large bed in Lestrade’s bedroom. There were loud sounds of a coffee bean grinder coming from the kitchen but he didn’t really hear them. In his mind, he was back in his dismal, eerily quiet Army quarters after his first return to London. The day he met Sherlock Holmes.

In the weeks leading up to that day, the day that changed his life forever, he had never been so alone. A loneliness that was felt in the intrusive silence of his flat after the intense and brutal sounds of war and of Army hospitals; at tables where he sat alone in bad cafes after the camaraderie of the mess hall in Afghanistan; in London parks and streets, out of tourist season; and most of all, in the silence in his own brain, resulting in not a single noteworthy thought or experience with which to fill his purported blog — as ordered by his therapist.

After the too-early deaths of his beloved parents in the same year - his mother to breast cancer and almost immediately thereafter; his father to a heart attack and drink, or rather, simple grief, he had not been able to turn to his sister Harriet (or as she preferred, Harry) for any sort of comfort. She was the only immediate family left him. She was hitting the bottle pretty hard, and took the death of their father as permission, or even a sign, to step it up, spending the next few years in a self-absorbed alcoholic haze.

John’s years of medical school and internship had been intense and full of sacrifice, and had taken every bit of his stamina; his social circle had become very small indeed.

And so, there didn’t seem any terribly good reason not to go when a fellow newly-minted doctor, a former classmate, declared he was throwing in with the Army and going off to Afghanistan for a bit of adventure and some real surgical experience. No one was more surprised than he was by how much he loved it there, and how crushed he was to be invalided home with a shot-up shoulder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and a psychosomatic limp.

But Afghanistan, too, had taught him more about painful loss: death came almost daily, sometimes to strangers, sometimes to friends that had become as close as brothers, and even sometimes, lovers. And although not on the field of battle, Afghanistan had also taken the life of a man that he had loved, Captain Bryan Monroe, who had been murdered, alone in his cell in a military prison, awaiting court martial for a crime he did not commit.

And so, John had returned to London almost two years ago with no plan for the future, no close friends to help him re-enter life in the city and certainly, no help from Harry other than her gift of a cast-off cell phone and a vague demand that he "keep in touch, sometimes, all right?" John understood very well. He had been very hard on her indeed when her drinking had rendered her incapable of helping their father when he had needed her the most.

And into this place in his life, possibly the very worst place – after the year of his parents’ deaths – came Sherlock Holmes, like entering a thunderstorm, powerful and wild, after a long drought. The intensity, the closeness of their bond had been electric and immediate but somehow it had taken him a while to admit it to himself. The depth of his feelings, even longer. Stupid. If he could turn back time, he would never have wasted a single one of those precious minutes, hiding from himself.

And now, this morning, since he was trying hard to take an honest look at what he had done, he could not conceal from himself that even gifted with a love as devoted, strong and true as that of Lestrade, he would never, ever again feel a love such as that shared between himself and Sherlock Holmes. It was like a different language; different music; such different order of feeling or even, plane of existence altogether; the love Lestrade gave, safe and warm, treasured and comforted, was nothing at all to what he had shared with Sherlock. It was so different that he truly felt that the one did not in any way diminish the other, so that he could almost not feel guilty.

Almost.

Because he knew in his heart that Sherlock Holmes did not need another living soul other than himself, and that if it were John that were gone, Sherlock Holmes would never, ever run into the arms of another man. Such an idea likely would never even cross his mind.

But for himself, could he really bear to go back to emptiness? Could he even survive it?

* * *

As expected, Pete had a video collection of his work.

It was filmed rather well from a high quality camera. He had taken care that the lighting was good. He brought the women to seedy hotel rooms. The women were half mad with pain and terror by the time he gave them a long, sharp knife and told them that if they could get past him, they would be free.

Of course, he had a knife too. And he hadn’t been drugged.

They had rewound and watched these films, snuff films, he realized, over and over and Sherlock had perfected the art of staring at the screen without seeing anything at all.

"You see it, don’t you, Mr. Holmes. Mr. Hitchcock was very wrong in ‘Blackmail.’ He let that slut – Anny Ondra – get away with murder – stabbing that poor artist after teasing him half to death – and cheating on her boyfriend on top of that! That’s why I even things up. They get my knife in the end. Shows them what happens to little girls that try to cheat.

"And he didn’t punish her at all in ‘The Manxman’! That poor bastard, she made a compete mockery out of him – getting knocked up by his best friend – while he was out working, trying to get enough money to marry her and keep her in style, the slut. Pete should have slit her throat while he had the chance.

"Mr. Hitchcock got it right in ‘Psycho.’ Norman Bates really knew how to use a knife. Norman Bates would have been fine – if he had just not kept that ridiculous mummy. Stupid fellow. Hobbies are a weakness," he explained. "Without that, he might have gotten away with it. He would have done better with a partner.

"But you have to have the right partner. The partners in ‘Rope’ and ‘Strangers on a Train’ didn’t trust each other. Don’t you see? That’s why I’ve taken such good care of you, Mr. Holmes. And that’s why I’m telling you all my secrets. What’s a partnership, without trust?"

Sherlock just stared at him. What, indeed, was a partnership without trust?

He painfully recalled his brutal assault on John, the last night he saw him in 221b. He recalled his overwhelming rage of possessiveness, his desire to overpower John, to take everything from him and keep it for his own, only his own. If he just go back in time and take it all back, he would. John would never betray him.

He needed to get out of here. He wanted desperately to go home. The only home he’d ever had since childhood, he had with John. Home was where John was.

"So, you have a plan, I see. You have someone you want killed," Sherlock said. "It’s perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain. Your wife had an affair with your best friend. You were away for a long time on some sort of business . . .military, I should think. And behind your back, she cheated on you. They both did . . . And there’s a baby now, too, and you know it isn’t yours. She doesn’t know that you know . . .But she left you anyway. And that’s not right, is it? She needs to be punished."

Pete listened to Sherlock’s recitation with the worshipful face of the fanatic. Sherlock had proven his faith in his idol was well deserved.

"Yes, that’s it! It needs to be very soon. They’re moving. We’ve wasted so much time already, we should have been well over it by now – you’ve not been easy, you know. That’s all right, though. Now, everything’s going to be perfect."

Sherlock said cheerfully, "Nothing could be easier. Not my particular cup of tea, you understand, I prefer poison. So much more elegant, so much less — mess, I find. Yes, we should talk about that. But you’ve laid it out quite thoroughly. I admire thoroughness, you know. Very rare in serial murderers. They think they’re being thorough, of course — but it’s always about the wrong things."

"Tell me what you mean," Pete said eagerly. Sherlock shook his head.

"We haven’t finished talking about our . . .partnership. I understand what you need done, of course. That’s quite clear. But - there isn’t anyone I am keen to murder at the moment — not unless you’ve located Jim Moriarty. I might consider that," he said honestly.

"I know. But after you watch this next film, I think you’ll change your mind."

Sherlock felt an icy chill come over him. He felt certain he knew what was coming. He tried to forestall it.

* * *

John sat up in the bed abruptly. Sometime during his inner monologue, Lestrade had thoughtfully left a fresh coffee, cream and sugar, on the nightstand. There were sounds of the shower. He reluctantly pushed away bitter and glorious memories of 221b.

He took a large swallow of coffee and padded over to his jacket which Lestrade had hung on a hanger in the closet. He saw that Lestrade had pushed aside some of his clothes to leave a large empty space on one side.

In the pocket of his jacket was the new disc that Donovan had given him, the updated murder book. This contained, finally, the witness statements and other evidence gathered in the investigation into the "running man suicide" on the Isle of Man. The suicide that everyone believed was Sherlock Holmes. John had been hounding Donovan and Lestrade daily for these reports, but as the investigation was done under the auspices of the constabulary of the Isle of Man, Donovan explained patiently, everything had to go through their channels, and even prodding from higher-ups through the offices of Mycroft failed to move the notoriously independent and stubborn Manx police into hurrying anything along.

He fingered the disc. Of course, his laptop was at 221b. But he couldn’t just slip out of the flat, that would be caddish.

"Greg – I need my laptop," he shouted over the sound of the shower.

"Don’t go back to Baker Street. Use mine," Lestrade shouted back, lightning fast. Obviously he was afraid John was manufacturing an excuse to leave, and had no intention of giving him a graceful way of doing so. And then he was coming out of the shower, wrapped in a vast white bath sheet, and had a look of such happiness to see John sitting there on the edge of his bed that he crossed the room in a flash and kissed John, sweetly and lingeringly, not caring about getting him wet. Sensing that John’s mind was elsewhere, he slowly pulled away.

"What is it?" He asked simply.

"I just — need to look at the murder book. Donovan gave me the update."

"Why? I mean, why particularly, why now?"

"It’s the new witness statements from the Isle of Man."

"Everything that could be done, was done, John. I’ve explained all that."

There was a silence. Lestrade knew better than to push John about this.

"Greg, it’s . . . the last place anyone ever saw him. If it really was him. I keep going over it, and over it. It just doesn’t make any sense. . . Not to me. Maybe these statements will help make it clearer." He was feeling a sort of panic, a not unfamiliar feeling these days. Going over and over the murder book seemed to be the only way to quell it, sometimes.

"All right, then. I’ll set up my laptop for you, over by the sofa. I’ve got to run down to the market. Do you want anything?"

John considered then softly shook his head. He really needed to tell Lestrade that he was still intending to stay with Lady Holmes, or at 221b. But they could talk about that later. First, the disc. Lestrade went out.

* * *

"You know, don’t you, that Scotland Yard is has a manhunt on to find me? They will, you know. I hope you understand that."

Pete just laughed now, as though it was a great joke. "I haven’t told you the best bit, Mr. Holmes! Everybody thinks you’re dead. Oh, and better yet, they think you’re the killer! So you don’t have anything left to go home to."

If Sherlock had been afraid of something like this, it did not show in his face.

 

Pete cued up the next video. He fast forwarded through the comings and goings at 221b, John and occasionally Mrs. Hudson, Lestrade, Mycroft or Donovan, speeding around like fast little robots. He stopped, then restarted at normal speed to show John and Lestrade talking. John had packed nearly all of his belongings and was slinging his Army duffle to the top of a row of suitcases. Then Lestrade arrived, and after a moment, John was putting his hands on Lestrade’s arms.

"Turn up the sound," Sherlock whispered.

"No, Mr. Holmes. These films are far more effective, I find, when you can’t hear their voices. Words lie. Actions never do," Pete said sagely. "Another virtue of Mr. Hitchcock’s silent films. At least you don’t have to listen to their lying, cheating tongues." He tactfully backed out of Sherlock’s range of vision so that he could, ostensibly, have a modicum of privacy.

Now John and Lestrade were kissing, and Lestrade was pulling John by the hand down the stairs of 221b.

There was a long silence as Pete listened to Sherlock’s labored breathing. He was in shock; Pete had expected this. His entire frame seemed to shrink in upon itself and he was shuddering, his face hidden in his bound hands. Pete thought he might be crying but if so, there were no sounds. He passed Sherlock a plastic bottle thoughtfully filled with a few measures of scotch. "Sorry, friend. I would like to raise a proper glass with you. I can’t be too careful. But I thought you might need a drink."

Sherlock did drink, fast and hard.

"I don’t suppose you want to see the next bit — from Lestrade’s flat? Much more difficult, that one. Or maybe you just want to trust me. It goes . . . where you expect. Where things always go. Unfaithful, that’s what they are. I had really only considered the problem from the female perspective – but after seeing you and Doctor Watson, I realized that I had been wrong. I’m up for the challenge. We can talk about how you’d like it done, I appreciate that my own methods don’t really translate to a male victim.

"So, to work on the plan. You already understand about killing my wife. I want to give you a little flexibility in our partnership. How shall we kill John Watson?"

Sherlock finally looked up and Pete stepped back before the soulless and icy agony in the man’s eyes. He was glad for the zipcuffs.

"Forget what I said about poison," Sherlock said hoarsely. "The knife."

They stared at each other in perfect harmony.

* * *

John immediately began scrolling through the very familiar pages of the murder book until he came to a new folder. He stopped. These were the new materials from the Isle of Man. He was astonished at how little time it took him to finish it.

There was a scarcity of information here that was amazing; possibly Donovan had mis-copied the files. Or, he wondered darkly, maybe there was something being held back from him, something that Lestrade didn’t want him to know. But he rejected that suspicion as unworthy. However, it was undeniable that the materials on the disc showed a casual, cursory investigation into a dubious episode that the local constabulary appeared to believe was some sort of prank on the part of the tourist who took the video.

No one had witnessed the running man who jumped off the cliff, the man who looked like Sherlock Holmes; no one other than the tourist. There were relatively few statements taken of persons leaving nearby who might have been expected, due to their proximity to the sea cliff , to have seen or heard something, but no one had seen anything – and it really didn’t appear that anyone had pushed very hard. Open and shut case; no corroborating witnesses; no body – after the skeleton had been excluded (in fact, it was the skeleton of a fisherman lost at sea some months ago in a freak storm).

Worst of all, no one from Scotland Yard had even gone to Man at all, apparently. He had presumed that they had. They had interviewed the tourist here in London and had analyzed the video. That was all.

Lestrade came back to the flat with a grocery bag, noting that John was fully clothed and had closed the laptop. He put the bags down and folded his arms warily.

"John – Where are you going?"

" I’m going to find out what really happened the night that man jumped off the sea cliff," John said. His expression was darkly determined, flushed, and he was breathing hard as if he had just been running – in fact, he was furious at the lack of care taken by the local police and felt like hitting something. His free-floating feelings of grief, fear, anger and even abandonment finally crystalized.

Here was a target he could focus on.

Woe to the Manx constabulary.

"I’m going to the Isle of Man," he said. "Don’t even think about trying to stop me."

Lestrade opened his mouth, shut it again, and then shoved the grocery bags whole into his refrigerator. "I’m not thinking of stopping you. I’m coming with you," he said.

To be continued . . .


	8. A Spot of Housecleaning.

Have you heard the news?

Bad things come in twos –

But I never knew

'bout the little things.

Let the headlines wait

Armies hesitate –

I can deal with fate:

but not the little things.

Armageddon may

Arrive any day –

Someone has to pay

for the little things.

　

Lyrics to The Little Things, All rights reserved Danny Elfman

 

 

Sherlock was awake in the dark. He was kept cuffed hand and foot at all times and shackled to the wall, with some five feet of range of motion to use the sink and toilet. He thought he had learned to distinguish some sounds from above that might be footsteps in what must be a structure above. Pete lived there, that much he was sure of. Because he never was gone for long. The time was very short now. But by observing his comings and goings, and deducing that the man was not nocturnally inclined as Sherlock himself was, that the longest time periods were the nighttime, when, presumably, Pete slept.

This was when Sherlock had time to think.

And although he was very expert at burying thoughts, feelings and experiences that had what he considered negative value, fully worthy of being deleted, he was powerless to direct his thoughts any where other than upon John.

And Lestrade.

He had been staring through the dim light at the stains on the ceiling for a long time. He was surprised by a stealthy turning of the doorhandle and silent footsteps on the stair. He quickly closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. He could feel a rush of air shifting around him and the sound of breathing.

Pete was here and was leaning over him, studying him.

He thought he felt something brush the side of his face. Through his eyelashes he could see that Pete’s outstretched hand was hovering near. His heart started hammering but Pete made no move to harm him, and withdrew the hand and there was a small rustling. Sherlock decided that Pete would expect him to have heard these sounds, and opened his eyes, looking up at Pete looking down at him. There was an expression there that Sherlock felt he understood.

"You know what I am," Sherlock said quietly.

There was a long moment where they looked at each other and something unspoken hung in the air.

After a few moments Pete sat on the edge of the bed. "You know my secrets. I need to know that you trust me. So just tell me. Have you? Have you ever?"

After a moment more, Sherlock finally nodded. "Twice."

"I knew it. How did it make you . . .feel?"

They talked long into the night.

* * *

John returned to 221b only to retrieve his gun.

He called Mycroft on the way. "You know the investigation on Man was a farce – I can’t leave it. There has to be more. Lestrade’s coming, we’re flying up today. What have you learned, anything?" Mycroft had been pursuing all avenues, no matter how indirect and tenuous, leading to Jim Moriarty and his amiable wife, Mrs. Moriarty.

Mycroft was alone in his conviction that the only remaining explanation for Sherlock’s long disappearance was his abduction by the Moriartys. However, as the Moriartys had never done so before without making spectacularly dramatic demands, he privately felt that any hope that this branch of the investigation would yield results was remote, to say the least. He confessed to John that he had learned exactly nothing.

"But Mrs. Moriarty sends her compliments," Mycroft deadpanned. John could never tell when Mycroft was taking the piss, and he was in no mood. "I am just in Euston Road, can you wait a bit," Mycroft asked. John agreed absently. He wanted some bullets and couldn’t remember where the spare box was. A few minutes later he was lost in memory, staring at an untidy pile of old letters addressed to Sherlock, imploring his help. This pile, he recalled as though it were yesterday, had been deemed boring.

He was surprised to feel a gentle hand take his. Lady Holmes was here with Mycroft and her London housekeeper, Rigby, a woman as short and slight as McLeod, in charge of Lady Holmes’ Yorkshire estate, was tall and sturdy. "How are you, Doctor Watson," she said gently, offering her cool cheek to be kissed. He could not speak, a lump in his throat. She squeezed his hand.

"I asked Rigby to come along and take some of Sherlock’s things. I hope you don’t mind. Mycroft told me you were going to the Isle of Man. Anyway. I felt that if . . .well, what if he should come to my flat and need anything?" John felt that there was a rebuke there, but Lady Holmes seemed lost in her own thoughts, too. Rigby emerged from Sherlock’s room with a few items of his clothing and John had to look away.

Rigby was inspecting the fireplace. "Did they ever finish that treatment, sir?" she asked John. He didn’t understand but was looking at the time. He needed to get to the airport. "When you were last away, you recall – all that construction. They treated the walls for mold, something nasty. I must say they did a good job of it," she rubbed her finger along the mantlepiece.

"I have to go now," John said. Mycroft handled over a slim folder. "I did my own little checking . . .had everything looked into rather thoroughly, I thought, John – but I won’t tell you not to go. I myself have not been. If you should learn anything at all – call me at once. Scotland Yard has no jurisdiction, I’m sure you appreciate, on the Isle of Man. It isn’t even part of the United Kingdom. It has its’ own parliament, it is a law unto itself. I have taken the trouble to prepare you a report," he indicated the folder.

Lady Holmes embraced him tightly, whispering in his ear as he left:

"Find my son."

* * *

When they landed by private charter on the tiny Isle of Man, or Mann, 33 miles long and 13 miles wide in the middle of the Irish Sea, it was nearly dark. John would not delay, he wanted to go directly to the police headquarters in Douglas, the capital.

"You can’t just march into police headquarters and start a row," Lestrade said.

John just stared at him with those eyes that now seemed permanently darker. "Watch me," he said through clenched teeth.

 

So it was that half an hour later, Lestrade was pulling John off of a smug desk sergeant who "wasn’t sure when Detective Chief Inspector Ramsay would be returning, he could make an appointment for next week," while John was yelling that he wasn’t going anywhere until someone gave him some answers about the "running man suicide." Lestrade was whispering into John’s ear to please not get them arrested while he held him back by the back of his jacket.

Lestrade could tell at a glance that this was not a police force accustomed to handing a great deal of serious crime. The atmosphere was more like a bank or stockbroker’s offices, with young, eager, and highly organized staffers distributed in gleaming cubicles. At the moment there wasn’t any case so pressing as to prevent any one of them from standing and gaping at John and Lestrade.

"Where is he?" Lestrade asked the desk sergeant gruffly. He had already given the chap an eyeful of his Scotland Yard badge and his Black Team credential. He made certain that the sergeant also got an eyeful of the Glock in his shoulder holster. The sergeant patiently explained that DCI Ramsay home on sick leave until the end of the week. John pounded the desk. "His address, then, please," he demanded. "Unless any of you useless lot want to tell me anything about this case?"

There was an eloquent silence. Nobody volunteered.

The sergeant took another look at Lestrade’s Black Team credential. "Let me just phone ahead, Detective Inspector. This is most irregular."

After a moment, though, he passed a sheet of paper bearing the seal of the Isle of Man Constabulary - a red circle in a blue six-pointed star with the emblem of Man, the "three legs of man," or triskelion, together with the Manx motto, Quoquncue Jeceris Stabit - "whithersoever you throw it, it will stand." It had Ramsay’s address neatly written out.

"Just warn him we’re coming, then," John said grimly on the way out. The sergeant nodded vigorously and John banged out the glass doors. On the way, a female officer surreptitiously thrust a folded card at him, which he palmed and kept walking. Lestrade wanted to make a joke about this, but one look at John’s face made him bite his tongue. He was starting to wish he hadn’t let John come here. It was a wild-goose chase. No way the local coppers were going to admit they had been less than diligent.

But he intended to be there when John became exhausted from his tilting at windmills.

* * *

On what Sherlock assumed was the following night, he was again alone with the television. He had been looking at the menu screen for the DVR for a long time. There was one film he hadn’t seen. It was the video feed from Lestrade’s flat.

Video of John and Lestrade.

Over and over his finger had rubbed the button on the remote that would select this final film but had never yet pressed it. Finally, he hit another button, which highlighted the choice "delete?"

He pressed the button.

At that moment Pete came storming down into the room. He pushed Sherlock away from the television roughly and grabbed the remote from him.

"Explain yourself," he said to Sherlock. Sherlock shook his head.

"Doesn’t matter. Don’t you see?"

Pete was agitated, though. He was very particular about his films. "You’ll regret it, Sherlock. I’m downloading it again. You’ll thank me," he said urgently, kneeling to unplug the DVR box.

At which moment Sherlock hurled himself on Pete’s back, knocking him hard to the floor. Sherlock grabbed the DVR in his bound hands and swung it down with all his might against Pete’s head. Pete was dazed and blood was running down his face. Sherlock dealt him another crashing blow with the corner of the DVR.

Pete lay still on the floor.

Sherlock patted him down and found his key to the door at the top of the stairs and the key to his shackles and leg retstraints. He used the key to roughly twist and gouge his way through the plastic zipcuffs on his wrists.

"That’s Mr Holmes to you," he said to Pete’s inert form as he crawled unsteadily up the stair. His legs were weak from his long confinement, but he made it to the top and unlocked the door which was bolted from the inside.

He was in a small, brightly-lit kitchen. There was a tea kettle on here, loudly simmering. He stared around, disoriented. Then he shut and bolted the door behind him. His heart was thundering and the blood was singing in his veins.

He was free. He had escaped.

* * *

 

Sherlock looked for a telephone, but saw nothing. He took a step toward the dark doorway at the end of the kitchen but stopped when a tall figure, a man, suddenly appeared there.

Sherlock opened his mouth to speak and could not even form the words.

It was a policeman in uniform.

"I’m Sherlock Holmes, I swear I am innocent, I’ve been held captive – go, look -- he's there," Sherlock pointed to the locked door. He realized that he was splashed with blood from his attack on Pete. He felt very dizzy. God knew what he looked like.

The policeman was tall and broad-shouldered, with short-cropped blondish hair and a long, thin face. He pulled out a gun.

Sherlock held out his hands, palms up. "No, no, no, you don’t understand, you’ve got to listen to me." He knew he was babbling.

"Shut up," the policeman ordered, "and stand with your palms against the wall, NOW."

"Wait – " Sherlock cried, but whatever plea he would have made died on his lips when the policeman pistol-whipped him.

Sherlock went down.

* * *

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the policeman muttered.

He took the key from Sherlock and opened the door, peering down the stairs. Pete’s legs could be seen slowly thrashing on the floor below.

The policeman grabbed Sherlock under his arms and slowly dragged him back down the stairs, his legs and feet bumping, dragging and catching on the stair on the way down. Sherlock’s head lolled and bounced. Once, the policeman had to stop because Sherlock’s pants became entangled in a protruding nail on the edge of the stair.

 

Pete was sitting up now, holding his hand to a large gash in his forehead. Blood welled up between his fingers. He looked up at the policeman.

The policeman dumped Sherlock hard onto the floor, and pointed his gun at Sherlock’s head.

Pete threw himself over Sherlock’s body. "Don’t, Mike, please please please."

The policeman frowned and cocked the gun. "It’s no good, Jack," he said. "I can’t cover for – this — any more. It’s different when you play your dirty tricks in London. People are still asking questions. You’ve fucked this up royally, you bloody fool. Now I reckon it’s time for me to clean up your mess. I always do."

Pete, or rather, Jack, was cringing but would not move from Sherlock. "Please, we’ll go away, I’ll take him away. Let me take him. We won’t come back. I promise," he pleaded, holding Sherlock’s head in his hands.

Mike slowly thrust his gun into his holster. "God knows I don’t want his blood on my hands. You disgust me, you know that, don’t you? Jesus. Thank God Mother’s not here to see all this." At this, Jack cowered even more and hung his head.

The policeman threw a set of car keys at Jack. "Now. Right now. I mean it. Go, before I change my mind."

Jack was pulling at Sherlock’s limp body. "Help me, Mike," he said pitifully.

Mike grabbed Sherlock under the arms again and Jack took the feet, and together they slowly and laboriously pulled him step by step back up the staircase.

When they got to the top, Mike held Sherlock while Jack secured his hands and feet.

Then he put tape over his mouth and a bag over his head.

They went into the garage. There was a shiny new police cruiser here and an anonymous-looking white Ford Focus sedan.

They threw Sherlock’s body in the trunk.

The policeman thrust some cash at Jack and walked away without another word or glance back.

Jack pulled a cap down over his cut forehead and pulled the white car out into the drive, taking care to drive slowly and carefully. It was dark outside. He turned on the headlamps. He turned the corner and looked both ways before pulling into the main road, passing a speeding taxicab.

* * *

Lestrade and John got out of the cab and asked the cabbie to wait. The home of Detective Chief Inspector Mike Ramsay was at the end of Sea Cliff Road, not far from the King Edward Bay Golf Club where he was a distinguished member. It was a street of very posh-looking restored Victorian and Edwardian houses, looking out over the sea towards the English shore.

Lestrade had implored John to let him handle the interview. John hadn’t agreed and was scowling ferociously. This should go well, Lestrade thought pessimistically.

Their knock on the neat green-painted front door yielded no result.

"They did say he was on sick leave," Lestrade said. John was peering through a curtained window but could see nothing. Finally, though, a tall, broad shouldered man wearing casual khakis, a navy blue jumper and leather slippers opened the door. He held a tissue to his nose. His face was red and flushed and his blond hair was mussed.

"Good evening, Detective Inspector — Lestrange, was it? Sorry – Lestrade – and Doctor Watson. My sergeant telephoned. I didn’t tell him to stop you. I understand Mr. Holmes was affiliated with New Scotland Yard," he said dubiously, as though the idea were outlandish. He didn’t open the door to invite them in. "What can I do for you? I suppose you know I am on sick leave. Miserable flu, can’t shake it. Don’t want to pass anything on."

John and Lestrade returned stony faces at this. "This may take a while," John said firmly. "We’ve come all the way from London. May we come in and talk to you?"

DCI Ramsay hesitated. "Are you sure you can’t wait until Monday? See my assistant Bonnie, she’ll fix you up. I’m really quite under the weather," he said politely enough.

Lestrade was examining the man’s perspiring face, his apparently fresh clothing, and noticed something peculiar.

There was a minuscule smudge of blood on his neck.

Not from shaving.

It looked very fresh.

So small that probably only a detective used to straining for trace evidence would have noticed it.

He pulled his gun and kicked the door in, knocking Ramsay back. John immediately drew his pistol as well, glancing up at Lestrade. "What, Greg, what?"

Ramsay was bellowing for help and fumbling for his own gun but the twin barrels staring him down dissuaded him from rash action. Lestrade kicked behind him and the front door slammed shut. "I’ll have you up on charges, you prick," Ramsay shouted. "Your badge doesn’t mean shit on Mann, you’ll learn soon enough."

"Not if I don’t have you up on charges first, mate," Lestrade retorted, his gun trained steady. "John – look, he’s got blood on his neck. Check behind him," he said as he carefully relieved Ramsay of his gun. These Manx cops never saw any action, he decided. Nobody would get his gun off of him.

John looked and saw another smudge on Ramsay’s ear.

"I’ll hold him and we’ll have ourselves a little chat," Lestrade ordered. "John, search the house. Be careful, there may be another person. Look for a hiding place. Look for blood."

 

* * *

By the time that Sherlock awoke, he was in total darkness and was having a hard time breathing through the bag over his head. He deliberately calmed his breathing. He was nauseous from intense tossing about of wherever he was lying down, bound. From the faint smell emanating through the bag, he was able to determine that he was in the trunk of a car.

And from the tossing and swaying of the car, they could only be in one place.

They were on a ferryboat.

* * *

John focused with a soldier's discipline on the immediate task at hand. The horror of finding blood here, of all places, made him feel cold and hard. He stalked through the well-appointed rooms with his gun raised, but it was eerily quiet except for the distant occasional rumble of the sea. The kitchen was brightly lit and very clean. Too clean. He smelled bleach. There was a wet mop sitting in a bucket next to a door. The floor was wet and had obviously just been mopped.

"Not too ill for a spot of housecleaning, then?" John shouted to the next room. "Would have thought you left that to the housekeeper."

"I told you, I’ve been ill. I gave her a few days off. No point getting her sick, too. That white tile gets so bloody dirty I like to give it a swipe every day."

Lestrade looked at Ramsay with his hard detective’s eyes. "At seven o’clock in the evening?"

John had found the locked door. "Lestrade, there’s a locked door. In the kitchen."

Lestrade said, "Give us the key then," but Ramsay shook his head in the negative. "Shoot it, John. Shoot the lock," he said calmly. Ramsay made a move toward the kitchen but Lestrade blocked the larger man’s path. "Don’t try it," he warned.

John turned his face away and shot off the lock. The door swung open.

He looked down a staircase to a dim room. There was a flickering as though a television were on down there.

But there was no sound.

John went down the steps.

 

To be continued . . .


	9. A Dream of Happiness.

_**Disarm,  
  
fallout  
  
there’s something that's knowing  -  
  
and knowing something’s what it’s all about.  
  
Could you believe?  
  
(Don’t stop looking)  
  
Just around the corner,  
  
everything is shining gold -  
  
A new kind of soldier,  
   
looking for a lot of soul.**  
  
  
Lyrics to Could You Believe, All rights reserved ATB_  
  
  
  
  
  
John carefully descended the stair. The light was dim but he found a switch that made it brighter.

"Anyone down there, come out slowly, hands where I can see them," he said. He heard nothing.

It was an unfinished cellar, no carpet on the stone floor. There was an old iron bedframe shoved against one wall, with a thin stained mattress. No sheets. There was a toilet and sink that could be concealed by a curtain that hung from the ceiling.

There was a metal cart against the wall, holding a large, new-looking plasma television. There was nothing but the eerie sparkle of grey and white static on the screen. He went closer to the television and fiddled with the buttons but no picture materialized.

No window or door gave access to the cellar except for the stair leading down from the kitchen. He thought he had never seen a cellar so barren. Who wouldn’t store a few odd bits and pieces down here?

And there was something here, a feeling, an atmosphere. Without thinking why, he went to the ugly bed and sat on it.

"John, anything down there?" Lestrade shouted.

John was touching the mattress. There was a stain there. He touched it with his fingertip. It smelled like spirits. Scotch, almost certainly. Still just slightly damp, as the whole cellar was damp. This made him think of the case that had finally brought John and Sherlock together as lovers – the strangled DJ, whose red robe had a long stain from spilled Scotch down the front. And there was a blue robe, too, of such a particular, striking color, that he had not been able to help imagining what Sherlock might look like, wearing that robe. When he had to finally admit to himself that he was hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes.

That same night, his sometime girlfriend had kicked him out for calling Sherlock’s name in his sleep.

He still did that, he knew.

And he was still hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes. Or, the ghost of Sherlock Holmes.

He shook himself and called back up, "No one here." He took one more careful look around, but found nothing more. But what he had seen made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. He pounded back up the stair and hurled himself at Ramsay, pressing the nose of his gun against the side of his neck.

"Talk to me, you bastard. Talk to me about who was drinking Scotch down there today. And watching television."

Ramsay shook his head and said nothing, pressing his lips together. John detected that he had turned pale. The cold shiver threatened to overwhelm John but his hand had never been steadier.

"Was Sherlock Holmes in this house? Did you keep him down there? Is that why your ruddy investigation is crap? What did you do with him?" John said in a deceptively reasonable voice.

Lestrade was trying to say something to him, something about letting him handle it, but John couldn’t really hear. "You fucking bastard, if you don’t cough up by the time I count three, this gun is going off. And I don’t mean a warning shot," John said intimately, almost up against Ramsay’s ear, jamming the gun harder, making Ramsay choke a little. But he still shook his head. John took the gun away from Ramsay’s neck and pointed to his kneecap.

"One."

"John!"

"Two."

"John, for Christ’s sake, don’t do it!"

Lestrade was staring at John’s visage, a relentless avenging spirit. John was going to kill Ramsay. He could see that clearly. His hand flickered unconsciously away from Ramsay for just a moment as he flashed on the consequences. "John, don’t be stupid, if he knows something we’ll never find out, stand down, for the love of God!"

"Nobody ever died of a bullet to the kneecap," John said, not looking at Lestrade at all. "And I’m not willing to wait."

Ramsay’s forehead was coated with a sheen of perspiration, and it wasn’t the flu. His eyes stared in his head, but he refused to open his lips.

It was this that convinced John that he wasn’t dreaming this. This man knew something.

"Three –" The front door burst open and two uniformed officers wearing armored vests, guns drawn, rushed into the room. Everyone was screaming at each other to put the guns down. Now it was three to two, and John’s finger almost cramped on the trigger before he and Lestrade met each other’s eyes with frustration and tossed their guns on the floor.

"Good work Landers, Gant," Ramsay said calmly. "Did DI Marks call Lestrade here’s Super?"

It was acknowledged that DI Marks had done so. One of the officers held out a mobile. "He said to call him at this number, day or night."

* * *

Lestrade and John were being held in separate little interview rooms back at the police station in Douglas.

It appeared that upon being notified by the desk sergeant that DI Lestrade of Scotland Yard and one John Watson were on the way to his home to question him about the "running man suicide," DCI Mike Ramsay had thought hard and then instructed his sergeant that if he didn’t phone back within a half hour, that armed officers should assume he was in personal danger and come immediately to the house on Sea Cliff Road.

Lestrade’s Superintendent, Thomas Yount, had been contacted. Yount had confidentially expressed his extreme shock to DCI Ramsay, and conveyed an unofficial apology:

"He’s been just killing himself, the poor blighter, over these serial killings. He was a close friend of our prime suspect. Sherlock Holmes. Brilliant fellow – but mad, you know. Lestrade’s gone over the edge. I’ve seen it happen to lesser men, but still I’m shocked. Thought he had more mettle. I’d taken him off lead for this investigation some time ago, though. Saw the signs . . .one never knows when one case will be a bridge too far, and all that. Anyway, if you’ll send him back forthwith, you have my word he’ll be seriously disciplined. Suspension at the very least. And – I don’t know about this Watson fellow — apparently Lestrade must have gotten him involved somehow - - I’ll take care of him too. Keep it all one tidy package. He already has an ASBO . . . I’m asking you as a favor, not to make anything more of this. We at the Yard would be very grateful. The Yard has a long memory. In fact, I’d like to personally invite you to join our task force on money laundering. Mann’s a serious tax haven, I have an idea what kind of currency must pour through some of your less upstanding banks, eh? Next summit is in Venice. In the spring. Possibly you can find the time. "

* * *

Lestrade and John each continually demanded to make a statement against Mike Ramsay. But as the case to answer was a few specks of blood (now gone), a tiny drop of whisky on a mattress, and a freshly mopped kitchen, the Manx officers regarded them as though they were barking mad. They didn’t get much excitement on Mann; as Yount was just mentioning, the Isle of Man was an independent, self-governing dependency of the British crown, and an international tax haven. Its shores were choked with offshore banks specializing in the delicate art of turning one sort of currency into another through intricate and hidden paths to, if not respectability, at least credibility.

Finally, they were released. Their guns were confiscated. No record had been made of this unusual encounter, at Ramsay’s direction.

John refused, however, to leave.

"I’m not going until someone gets Ramsay here to explain why he had a television set on, in an empty cellar, with nothing feeding it. No satellite, no cable, no DVD player, no DVR, nothing. Why would that be? And somebody sat on that bed drinking scotch, watching that telly; but no blankets or sheets on the mattress. Did he have to wash them up in a hurry, then — because we were coming? The rest of the house looks like a palace – why the fuck would anybody be watching telly down that horrible cellar? And why Ramsay’s mopping his kitchen up with bleach – at night mind you – when he’s home sick with the flu? I’m telling you, he had somebody trapped down there. And I think it was Sherlock Holmes."

"Sherlock Holmes is dead," DI Gant explained patiently. "He jumped off the sea cliff. It’s all on video."

John roared. "There’s no body!"

"Happens all the time. More common not to find the body, really," Gant shrugged, handing John his jacket. "I’m to put you on the next ferry to Liverpool. And I’m to stay there until I see you on board," Gant said.

Lestrade was here now, and he nodded to John resignedly. He had just gotten off the phone with Yount. He was suspended without pay pending further notice and was to consider himself on house arrest upon return to London. "I want you out sight, do you hear, Lestrade? You’ve gone clean off your nut. I’m prepared to blame this Watson chap – but for now, you have your orders."

"It’s entirely my fault, sir. Watson was following my instructions all the way, don’t charge him, sir. He’s a doctor, he’s a war hero — I don’t want him harmed by this. It got out of hand, I take full responsibility. I don’t ask anything for myself, I’m owning up here, all right? But I’d take it as a personal favor if you can let this go," Lestrade said.

"I don’t want to hear any more about this," Yount said ambiguously. "It’s out of your hands. Just stay home. And think about your future."

The thought of John being charged with any crime horrified Lestrade. He should never have let John come here . . . except that, he knew John was right.

And everything about Ramsay was dead wrong.

They would have to think of something else.

* * *

Gant watched them walk onto the ferry packet from Douglas to Liverpool, then raised his hand to wave goodbye, as though they were distant relatives going back home.

John watched Gant’s receding back, getting into his car and pulling away. He and Lestrade were standing on a wooden deck, lookout out over wet railings toward the Irish sea. The ferry packet was still docked. Cars and motorcycles were pulling in slowly and being directed to lines where they were packed like sardines. But the ferry was almost full and John could see that in just a few minutes the ferry would pull out for open sea toward Liverpool.

Fishing for his mobile to call Mycroft, his fingertips brushed a folded business card. He withdrew it and read it. It said, in hurriedly scrawled pencil, now smeared, " _If you want to know about the suicide, see Felicia Killingsworth. 2 Tynwald Close St John near Witch’s Hill."_ He showed the card to Lestrade, who shrugged helplessly and put his hand on John's shoulder.

Heart thundering, John turned away, casually, then walked with confidence toward a man pulling in with a motorcycle. "John –" Lestrade hissed.

Motorcyclists could park in a row against a wall and then wait with the other passengers in the lounge above.

John’s black jacket looked like the jackets of the parking attendants.

He said, "Sir, you’re late – I have to park it in the back, leave your keys." The man just nodded and hurried toward the little bar in the lounge. Lestrade was staring at him, open mouthed with disbelief. John mouthed "Sorry," and cranked up the motorcycle.

Then he was speeding over the gangway and back into the port of Douglas.

It was dawn.

* * *

He stopped once for directions but it was easy to make for the town of St. John. The Isle of Man was only 13 miles wide and St. John was in the middle of it, easily identifiable from the gentle peaks of Slieau Whalllian, or Witches Hill, rising above it. A visitor’s centre outside the green Tynwald Park, full of early morning dog walkers, had a helpful stand containing maps of St. John’s. He found Tynwald Close, a short street lined with quaint cottages letting onto the Tynwald Park, in the shadow of Witches Hill. Number 2 was exceptionally pretty with a lush garden of flowering plants and, he saw, herbs and medicinal plants. It was a very odd time of day to be calling on a stranger, but he was driven by the sense that time was running out. He approached the door and used the brass knocker, the head of a raven.

The door opened and a grey-haired woman, tall and statuesque, looked out at him.

"I’ve been expecting you," she said, her grey eyes meeting his. She seemed very ---- serene. She turned an obviously expected him to follow into the house.

"How?" He asked simply. They went through the house to her kitchen, where she poured him a cup of tea and made one for herself. He shook his head and refused to sit. "I’m in a hurry, I have to leave," he said. "I just need some information."

"About Sherlock Holmes. I know."

John was thunderstruck, but then realized that the woman at the Douglas police station who had given him this card obviously must have called this Felicia Killingsworth and warned her.

The woman didn’t seem very afraid of him, given what they must be saying about John and Lestrade in the Douglas station right now.

"Please sit. Claire is my niece. She telephoned me, of course. She told me you wanted to know about the man who threw himself off the sea cliff in Onchan. Next town over to Douglas," she explained. John nodded. He had read the file.

"What do you know? Did you see it?"

"Well, yes — and no. And I want you to know that I told everything to Claire, her being my niece, and with the police in Douglas and all. But she found out later that her report was not in the files and her boss, that Ramsay, told her to mind her business, that I was a crazy old witch and to pay me no mind."

John recalled that the nearby prominence was called Witches Hill. She nodded. "It’s true, but I’ve eyes in my head just like you. And I’ll tell you what I told Claire. The night before that tourist took the video of the man, the one who jumped off the sea cliff, I was in Onchan. For the full moon. With friends, but as it happened I was alone in the little park by the sea cliffs, next to that hotel – The Queen Anne, I believe it is. I was walking to my friend’s house. It was well past midnight and it was ever so quiet. Not another soul about.

"I stopped to look at some plants - there are some rare ones, if you know where to look, in that park. Anyway, I see a man running, full speed, toward the sea cliff. He was wearing a long dark coat. He had dark hair. Claire showed me the video that the tourist took, you know. And it was the same man, I could almost swear it – although I didn’t get a good look at his face."

John was burning with suspense to hear her story. "Please don’t stop, tell me what you saw," he begged.

"The man jumped off the cliff."

John was puzzled. "So you saw the same thing that the tourist saw? Why are they saying you’re crazy?"

The woman shook her head and laughed. "Many people have said I’m crazy. But I saw what I saw. I didn’t see what the tourist saw, I never saw him. That’s because it was a different night."

"A different night . . .but you said it was the same man, the same one the tourist saw, I don’t understand?"

The woman’s wise grey eyes twinkled. "It was a different night. Because I ran over to the cliff, I though he had killed himself, poor lad. But when I looked down over the cliff, I was so relieved."

John’s fingers were gripping the edge of her table, hard. He knew that he was about to hear something that would change everything. The woman wasn’t at all crazy.

"He was climbing back up the rocks. Quite dangerous, I should think. I thought at the time he was doing it at night because he didn’t want to get caught by the constable, and wanted the good light. He never hurt anybody, just amusing himself. I do know how to keep to my own business," she said.

"What happened next?" John asked breathlessly.

"He climbed back up, and came back over the sea wall quite a ways down the path. Not where he jumped. And he got on a bicycle and rode away."

John’s mouth was dry and he took a long gulp of the fragrant tea. "And you’re certain this was before the night that the tourist saw this man jump off the same cliff?"

"Positive," she said. "That tourist said he ran straight back to the hotel to get help. It was on the news. I think that this man wanted folk to think he jumped to his death. I caught him doing his dress rehearsal, you see? He wanted to practice. Or maybe, if he had seen me, he would have pretended to drown in the sea."

John was baffled. How could a man survive the jump over the cliff? He realized he could have prepared something – a harness, a net fixed into the rocks, if he had privacy to prepare his perfect spot. It seemed incredible.

He jumped up, almost knocking over his teacup. If this was true, it almost certainly meant that the running man, Sherlock or not, was not dead. It had been an illusion, meant to convince people that Sherlock Holmes was dead. And it had worked.

Why would Sherlock want people to think he was dead? Why wouldn’t he at least get word to John, somehow, some way? His brain ached from trying to unravel the puzzle.

Felicia Killingsworth regarded him with sympathy. "You want to know what happened to him. You want to know if he’s still alive. You want to know if he loves you."

John nodded, eyes wide. This woman saw everything clearly. No, she wasn’t crazy.

"I have to go," he stammered. "I need you to make a written statement to Scotland Yard. Will you do it, when I ask you to?" he asked. She nodded.

"Don’t rush away. I can help you. Sit for a moment," she said, reaching for a little wooden box and withdrawing a pack of worn cards. John was impatient to go, but didn’t want to offend this woman who may have just given him his life back. The block of ice that was his heart started to crack, just a little. She spread out the deck. "Draw your first card," she said. "This is the tarot. Forget what you may think and just trust the cards," she said, her voice firm and soothing somehow. He felt compelled to do as she asked, and drew a card, turning it over.

"The Two of Swords," she said. It depicted a seated woman, blindfolded, holding two swords, crossed. "This is your past. It means you were forced to make a choice. You did not face reality. The blindfold tells that you ignored your instinct, your true feelings. In some ways, your indecision forced this choice to be made for you."

 

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000057e8/)

The second card was the Seven of Cups. A dark figure is looking into clouds, in which seven golden cups filled with treasure float. "This is your present. You have a vision, a dream, of happiness, whatever that means to you – but it is just a dream. It is not realistic. Hold on to what is real in your life."

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000061xy/)

John drew the final card. The future. The Eight of Swords. A blindfolded woman is surrounded by what looks like a prison of swords. But she is not trapped – there is a clear exit, if only she can find it.

"You will feel trapped and alone. You may feel there is no way out. A strong, authoritative figure may be hold you back, or make you feel that you cannot escape. But you must never give up your own power. When it is time to break free, you will know."

[ ](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000076zx/)

Felicia patted his hand. "The cards mean what you believe they mean. But you must not ignore them. Or your own power."

"Thank you," John said, an unfamiliar feeling that he realized was almost like joy bubbling up inside for the first time in many months, although at the same time, the sad, blind prisoner of the Eight of Swords haunted him somehow. They parted, John feeling lighter with every step, and Felicia with hope mixed with concern.

He ran back out into the morning sun, bright on Witches’ Hill, and climbed on his borrowed motorcycle, and sped back to Port Douglas.  
  


  
  
[Listen to Could You Believe](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zw6ovuvEq20)

To be continued . . .


	10. The Beauty of Vengeance.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Ten. The Beauty of Vengeance.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 5,700  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

 

What is done in vain,

Truth is hard to swallow.

Well, you made your bed:

I’m in mine.

Because when I

arrive -

I bring the fire

Make you come

alive -

I can take you higher

What this is - forgot?

I must now remind you-

I wish I could be

As cruel as you:

But I can’t – and I won’t live a lie.

No, not this time.

Lyrics to Let It Rock, all rights reserved Kevin Rudolf

 

John rode his borrowed motorbike back to Douglas, and then, on an impulse, on to the neighboring town of Orchan. The promise of the early morning sunshine had passed, and a storm was approaching.

He quickly found the road running along the sea cliffs, and The Queen Anne hotel. He parked well off the street so as to conceal the motorbike for as long as he could. By now, the man on the ferry would know his motorbike was gone. Authorities would be notified. They would be looking on the Isle of Man. He simply could not let himself be taken into custody; he needed to find out the truth.

A truth that his heart was starting to believe, even though his mind could not quite take it in.

The Queen Anne was a lovingly restored old Victorian mansion on a prominence overlooking the sea, alone on the edge of a public promenade that hugged the dramatic coastline here. John could see the nearby park that Felicia Killingsworth had spoken of.

He entered the hotel as the storm broke, feeling the gaze of the few guests and staff milling about the lobby as accusatory, knowing. He shook it off and approached the front desk. An elderly woman in conservative cardigan set and pearls was speaking with some authority to a uniformed bellman. She turned to John.

"Good afternoon, sir, and welcome to The Queen Anne. Will you be wanting a room?"

"Possibly. I’m — writing a piece for my blog on the Isle of Man," he said, the first thing that came to mind and something that might even have a grain of truth, someday. He yearned for those days, not long ago, when he had sat comfortably in 221b, typing away at his blog, Sherlock slouching on the sofa, bored; or poking about in the terrible kitchen, attending to his ‘experiments,’; or impetuously preventing him from updating his blog altogether by —

"Are you all right, sir?" the woman said sympathetically, her hand on John’s arm.

"I’m sorry. My blog. Well. I was wondering, is there anyone here who knows the exact place on the sea cliff where that man jumped? The one that was all over the news? One of your guests was talking about it on television, I’m sure you know. I wanted to snap a photo."

She nodded. "Yes, our Jonathan - the night desk manager – was here that night, when the gentleman came running in for help. Of course by then, it was too late. Poor soul. Like that other time," she said mysteriously. "But Jonathan is off today, sorry. But you can snap a picture at the little cove, between the two largest trees, you really can’t miss it," she said, becoming distracted by a large party approaching the front desk. John was about to give up, but curious, asked:

"What other time?"

"Oh, let me think, now . . . it was more than 25 years ago, I should think. Local teenagers. Wild, you know. They were daring each other to jump. Off the sea cliff. One boy drowned. They never found his body. There’s a terrible current there, and of course the rocks. It’s not meant for swimming at all, never mind jumping."

John felt that he was coming closer to understanding everything, now. "Who could tell me more about that story? For my blog, I mean? It’s a fascinating coincidence, don’t you think?"

"I would see Geraldine Reston, over at the library. She can surely pull out the old newspaper articles. And she would remember."

"Why is that?"

"It was a boy from her own street that died. This is a small island, and was so much less crowded, then. She’ll remember it well."

* * *

The little library of Orchan was a converted cottage on a street a few blocks from the sea. You could hear the waves crashing, whipped by the storm. John wished he had an umbrella, entering the library dripping everywhere.

John had no trouble finding Geraldine Reston, who was pulling a cart and re-shelving books. She looked as though she disbelieved his blog story, with eyes that seemed uncannily knowing – and he remembered Felicia Killingsworth’s story, that she had been visiting friends — witch friends — the night she saw the man throw himself of the sea cliff. Was Geraldine one of them? She admitted that she had known the boy who died all those years ago, though.

"It’s true. He lived two doors down – was a good mate of my brother’s. I still give thanks that my brother was home with a cold that day, and did not go with the others. It might well have been him, and not the other boy. Tom Wrightsmith. That was his name. They never found his body. The parents kept hoping and hoping that he had been picked up by fishermen, and somehow had forgotten his name. It was terrible, the not knowing for certain."

John felt sick at the same time that his hope was struggling to rise. The not knowing.

"What actually happened?"

"There was another boy, a little older than the others. A strange boy, always getting up to trouble. It was quite a scandal, as his father was a constable. Anyway, this boy claimed he had found a special place in the cove, where if you jumped just so, you could plunge to the bottom without getting hurt. He thought it was a rare game. The rocks and tide there are terrible, it’s a miracle he hadn’t killed himself. But he showed the others that he could do it, and sure enough, they see his head pop up and he’s yelling at them to try it. Nobody would. Then he climbed up, and was calling them such names, pansies and ponces and — well, you know boys that age — and finally one of the other boys – Gerry something, I think it was — jumped, and made it back safely. But Tom Wrightsmith was always a little shy, and he would not do it." Geraldine paused, remembering the lost boy. "Later, Gerry said that the boy pushed Tom. The boy denied it, said he never touched him. One way or another, Tom went into the sea. And never was seen again."

John was filled with a strange feeling of anticipation mingled with dread. "What was the boy’s name? The one that started the game?"

"They had to send him away for a while, it was such a scandal. People on Mann thought his father got it hushed up – he was a constable, you see. It was that Jack Ramsay. Always an odd boy, people said he should have been charged with murder, though he was no more than 15."

"Jack Ramsay. . ."

"Yes. His brother Mike, he stepped into his father’s shoes — he’ll be Chief Constable one day, they say. He’s Detective Chief Inspector in Douglas."

"What happened to Jack Ramsay?"

"I can’t say, never thought of it for so many years. . . .I say," Geraldine said with a penetrating look, "I wish you would tell me what you really want to know ----"

"You’ve been very kind," John stammered – "I have to go," he said, running out into the storm.

* * *

The house on Sea Cliff Drive was quiet. John parked the motorcycle in a car park two blocks away, and walked down the streets in pouring rain. It was mid-day now, and he could only hope that Ramsay was no longer home "sick."

On the other hand, if he was at home, John was prepared. So long as he was alone.

And maybe even if he wasn’t.

John had once killed one of Moriarty’s henchmen, and nearly Moriarty himself, in less than a minute with nothing more than a broken lightbulb and his bare hands.

His training with Spartan LLC had vastly improved this repertoire.

And even back in Paratrooper training, one of the tests — exclusive in Her Majesty’s armed forces to the Paras — was a bout of "milling." Two men, one an experienced soldier; the other, the candidate, were put in a ring with bare fists. And no holds barred, were to pound each other to a pulp until one fell down and did not get up, or ten minutes passed.

John had still been standing.

And so, while John regretted the loss of his gun, he did not worry overmuch about being able to handle the desk-bound DCI Ramsay on his home turf.

* * *

Mike Ramsay had had a long, challenging day planning the security for an upcoming annual international bicycle race, which made a circuit of the island. He fixed himself a microwave dinner and ate in front of the telly. He really wanted to see whether there had been any new murders by the mysterious London serial killer. His brother, Jack.

He was amused by the knowledge that if they ever found him out – which they never would, he believed — he would forever be known as Jack the Ripper II, or something similar. For the brutal stabbing of the dead women. Not that they didn’t deserve it, he thought darkly. He just wished Jack hadn’t made such a mess of things. Nobody was brighter than Jack, but when he got off plan . . .

There was no fresh news.

He finished his single bottle of ale - he was generally disciplined about this, as about most things – and did the washing up. He had an early morning meeting, but was still a little restless about the events of yesterday. He went back out to watch a bit more telly.

About an hour later, he was about to fall asleep on the sofa, and thought briefly that he really should go up to bed. He reached up to switch off the light, but stopped, hand outstretched, when he thought he heard a strange sound.

He sat up.

Definitely, there was a sound.

He stood up and looked out the window. It was quite dark, and the sky crowded with the storm clouds that had borne the storm that lashed the island all day and into the night. The trees were waving violently in the gusty wind. With a large crash a branch of one of the trees banged against the wall.

He made a mental note to have a professional out to thin the branches before they damaged the house.

He didn’t think that Mann had used to have such violent storms. Global warming, some said. His own childhood memories were of gentle rainstorms followed by bright sun, rainbows.

He laid back down on the sofa and turned out the light, the television turned down low, drifting off to sleep on these pleasant childhood reminiscences.

His awakening was not so gentle. What had awakened him? The storm? It had, if anything, increased its fury and a whistling, wild wind and lashing of rain pummeled the house. Ramsay’s eyes flew open to find his wrists bound, somehow; feet too. The vague dark outline of a man sitting on the edge of the sofa. A knife blade glinting dully in indirect light coming from the television.

His heart was going to burst his chest.

His mouth was prised open and a cloth stuffed in it before he could scream.

And although he could not see his face, he sensed who this man was. He tried thrashing briefly but it was useless. Suddenly it seemed he could not get enough air, and he was panting as hard as he could through his nostrils, his eyes wider, probably, than they had ever been.

The knife was now brought to his neck. "Figured it out, have you?" the voice said, that reasonable voice. A polite voice. It was that man, the one who had been going to shoot him.

John Watson.

He was trying to scream through the gag in his mouth but nothing but faint ineffectual moaning issued.

John leaned in close.

"Nod if you are prepared to tell me where Sherlock Holmes is. If not – we have a lot of work to do," John said.

* * *

The knife was pressing hard against the flesh of his neck, held in gloved hands.

Here was a problem. He didn’t know where Sherlock Holmes was. Maybe this John Watson would let him explain.

Somehow, though, when he looked into those eyes, those eyes that should be blue, or green, but seemed to be simply black, he didn’t think so. He groaned some more, then bit off a scream when John ripped the gag out, while pressing even harder with the knife.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about," he panted. John was shaking his head. With his free hand, he put a duffle bag on his chest. It was heavy enough to cause him to struggle to breathe.

"Explain," John said.

Ramsay shook his head. "Don’t know."

"Let’s review. A coat. Indisputably belonging to Sherlock Holmes. That he was wearing the day he disappeared. It has the spare key to his flat buttoned into the inner pocket. Also, his scarf. Don’t argue, I know it’s his. No one would know better. Both have been in sea water.

"And a receipt from Speedy’s - the café below Holmes’ flat. Still legible. You’ve been in London lately? No? It’s dated two days after Sherlock’s disappearance . . . he was never seen anywhere near the flat after that particular date — No, it was somebody who had this coat, after Sherlock disappeared. Somebody hanging around 221b Baker Street, even after he disappeared – watching me, and DI Lestrade, maybe? And now, it’s in your closet.

"You keep shaking your head ‘No.’ We aren’t done yet. A knife. A sort of ...rubber mask. Boxed hair dye kits, dark brown, also blonde. . . .and some makeup, for women by the look of it. . . . Some sort of drugs. A hypodermic kit. Lots of zipcuffs. You know what this looks like, don’t you? A murder kit.

"And there’s a portable computer hard drive here, too . . . I didn’t have a chance to boot it up. Yet."

Ramsay maintained his stubborn silence.

"I’ve killed before, you know. More than you might think. And for much less. I’ve been in Afghanistan. And other places . . . I can tell you that for Sherlock – I don’t care. What I have to do. You’re going to talk.

"And let me give you another piece of news. I don’t think it was you. I think it was your little brother. Jack."

He was about to make a non-lethal but painful cut in the man’s neck, when the babbling started.

 

"That’s not my bag. I had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes’ disappearance. You have to believe me. You’re right. It was my brother. Jack."

"Where is Sherlock Holmes? What did he do with him?"

"Jack was here, with Holmes . . . in the cellar. I made him leave, take Holmes away. It was just before you came, yesterday. Like you thought. He was still alive, then, I swear. Jack would go back to London. I think. That’s all I know. He doesn’t have a mobile, he won’t call. You have to believe me. Why would I tell you if it wasn’t true?"

"I need the license number of his car, make, model." Ramsay told him.

"Where in London he would take Sherlock? Street address, what tube station is nearby, anything?"

"I don’t know. . . but once, Jack said he had a brilliant plan – he had taken over a flat, got the contract for the renovations. The owners took a villa in Umbria for a year. Jack’s a building contractor since he got out of the Navy, you know. Very clever with his hands, Jack is. Well. If he went anywhere, it would be there. To that flat."

"And you’ve no idea where it is?"

"None. Never asked. Less I knew, the better. Don’t you see?"

"Why did your brother take Sherlock? Tell me everything you know."

Here, Ramsay was unable to provide any meaningful response. "Jack . . .has peculiar ideas. I really don’t know. I think, in some way — he wanted to be like Holmes. Or wanted Holmes to be like him. Look, I don’t claim to understand it. Jack knew I didn’t agree with his . . . ideas."

John was so quiet that Ramsay began to feel that his ordeal might be over. But then John spoke:

"How. Long. Was. Sherlock. Here."

Ramsay shook his head again, terrified. Terrified that if this John Watson knew, he would kill him anyway.

But by just a moment later, John had persuaded him that remaining silent really wasn’t an option.

"Four – four almost five – months. I think," he gasped.

John threw the knife to the floor and Ramsay had just a moment to feel intense relief before John cold-cocked him with a gloved fist like iron, and everything went black.

* * *

The first call that John placed was to Mycroft, who told him what to do.

The second call John made was to Lestrade, who was almost speechless with mixed relief and anger after hearing John’s story. Given his suspended status with the Yard Lestrade could only urge John to come home with all speed, and leave the investigation in other hands.

Then John phoned the police in Douglas. It was his great good luck that the duty officer was none other than Sergeant Claire Killingsworth.

Many hours later, John was released from the police station in Douglas, having made out a report to the effect that: On the way off of the Isle of Man, John Watson had received a call from DCI Mike Ramsay, asking him to return later to the house on Sea Cliff Road. (Mycroft had laid a plausible phone trail.)

Ramsay said he wanted to give John confidential information. He instructed John to speak to no one, particularly DI Lestrade. To accomplish this, John had ‘borrowed’ a motorbike that he was happy to report was now parked safely near Ramsay’s home.

Upon arrival, Ramsay lulled John into a false sense of security by speaking frankly about the shortcomings in the "running man suicide" investigation. He had then surprised John by assaulting him. John had succeeded in escaping, fighting back with a knife from the kitchen. A desperate chase through the house ensued, ending when John overpowered Ramsay and tied him up.

John had been looking in a closet for a dry jacket to cover himself, being rain-soaked from the storm, when he found an open duffle bag in plain view. The sleeve of Sherlock’s familiar coat was protruding from it.

When confronted, Ramsay had admitted everything.

* * *

On the way back to the ferry landing, John’s taxicab was held up by construction workers in fluorescent vests, busy putting up cones and barriers. John became alarmed. What if he couldn’t get to the ferry?

"What’s happening, do you know? Is the ferry open?" He asked anxiously through his exhaustion. He hadn’t slept for more than two days.

"It’s for the bicycle races, they start tomorrow. No worries, mate – you can catch the ferry regular-like, today," the cabbie said.

For a few brief minutes, John dozed.

* * *

Sherlock awoke with a terrible headache and a powerful thirst. He had been drugged again.

The place where he was now was dark, and he was again bound and gagged. But whatever he had been given had worn off. He could think. And he could see.

He patiently waited until he could distinguish a faint line on the floor. He was in a room that had a door. He could hear street noises – and his heart sang. It sounded like a city. Not like before, where he sometimes thought he heard the pounding of surf from the sea, never any city sounds.

He kicked his feet in case someone below might hear him. If his captor, Pete, was going to kill him, he would have done so long. No, Pete had plans. Plans that they had discussed at great length.

The crack of light lengthened, expanded to a tall bright rectangle. His eyes watered with the sudden light. The door was open. Pete was here.

"Sherlock, it’s time. Remember what we said. You know I forgive you, for before, don’t you? It was too great a shock — Lestrade and Watson. I know what that feels like, believe me. You lashed out, and I was the only one there to take it. But now, we can begin to be free." Pete was looking at him anxiously, as though afraid that Sherlock might change his mind about their great plans. Pete no longer had curling brown hair. It was cropped very short, and was a dark blond, as Sherlock had suspected.

Sherlock struggled to remember what they had said. Something about poison. A conversation echoed in his head– had it been a dream?

"You can’t kill her like the others. Everyone will know her ex-husband is the infamous London serial killer. They’ll have your name, then. You never want them to have your name. It’s so much better if she goes . . . differently. A way no one can detect. That doesn’t tie in to the other killings. You’re beyond that now, aren’t you? You could learn so much from me, if only you’ll let me show you," Sherlock had said with as much passion as he could muster, still wasted from whatever the drugs were he was being given. Some sort of hallucinogenic or hypnotic.

"How can we do it?"

"First, we need to get . . . the right poison. Not something common. Something rare . . .I have compounds back at my flat that no one in the world has ever seen. Poisons no one will ever detect. The perfect crime."

And so Pete had agreed that his ex-wife would be dispatched by poison. Maybe her husband, too: Pete went back and forth as to whether the man who had stolen his wife would suffer more by outliving her; they had long philosophical conversations about the nature of loss, of jealousy, of maximizing suffering.

Sherlock had never imagined he would be as intimately acquainted with these overpowering sensations as he was now. Now, they ruled him.

But first, Sherlock had to get the poison personally from 221b. There was no way to recreate these rare substances, painstakingly refined over years of experimentation. And no way to explain to Pete how to retrieve them. "I have to go with you, though," Pete insisted.

So now, Sherlock thought he knew where they were. Pete had explained about the flat at 223b. How he had the contract to renovate it, how the couple that owned it had let a flat in Italy for a year, leaving it in Pete’s care. And proudly, explained his little trap door through the wall into 221b, behind the specimen cabinet. Sherlock thought he could still recall the night he had last been in 221b, alone — but he really wasn’t sure.

Sometimes, the drugs made it hard to think properly.

But when his thoughts turned to John, as they always did, everything became clear.

* * *

 

Mycroft and DI Allyn’s Scotland Yard team, including Sergeant Sally Donovan, attacked the new evidence from the Isle of Man.

They had a prime suspect – their man was John aka ‘Jack’ Ramsay, formerly in Her Majesty’s Navy, last seen driving a new model white Ford Focus whose number they ran and found, frustratingly, registered to his brother Michael’s address in the Isle of Man.

The only known address for Ramsay was a London post box and an old flat upon which he had abandoned the lease six months past. Checks were being made against his contractor’s license, but these records were not all computerized. The search through the haphazard paper records such as building permits, insurance bonds and the like was agonizingly slow.

* * *

Upon returning to London, John had gone directly to Lady Holmes over Lestrade’s urgent plea that he come to his own flat. He wanted Lady Holmes to know everything, to know that he had done everything that he could to bring Sherlock Holmes back. That now, after all these months, there was hope.

When she opened the door herself to the vast mansion in Mayfair, John almost fell into her arms. "Mycroft told me, John," she said, her eyes bright. "I knew you would do it. We’re going to find him now. I know it," she said, drawing him into the beautiful rooms filled with grey light from the dark London winter, a fire crackling in every grate. He could just collapse on his feet, right here, right on these priceless carpets. But he couldn’t stop now.

He allowed Rigby to give him tea and biscuits, which he ate without even removing his jacket. Lestrade rang his mobile.

"John – DI Allyn’s letting me back on the case. Decent fellow, after all. They even gave me back a gun. Donovan and I are questioning people in Baker Street. We’ve a photo of this bastard Jack Ramsay, his real photo, from the Navy database. Of course, Allyn won’t let you anywhere near the investigation — Yount’s orders. Although now you’ve broken the case open, John, they’ll forgive and forget about the Isle of Man soon enough. God, John, I have to see you, don’t you know that? If you’ll just wait in 221b, I can tell you how we’re coming along, and we can try to grab some dinner, after."

* * *

John took the tube to Baker Street, not a cab as Sherlock had always preferred. He wanted to search every face in London for Sherlock, for Jack Ramsay.

As he emerged from the Baker Street station, the end of the road was blocked already and patrol officers in bright fluorescent vests were directing traffic away from Baker Street. It made him remember the day of the terrible explosion, another day he had felt the terror of possibly losing Sherlock Holmes. He climbed the stair and opened the door to 221b.

He was impatient to go down into Baker Street and find Lestrade, but was mindful of not jeopardizing Lestrade’s reinstatement to the good graces of Scotland Yard. And he needed to think carefully about what he needed to say to Greg, now. Now that everything was different.

He sat in his old chair, plumping the Union Jack pillow. His eyes closed for just a moment.

* * *

When Sherlock had been held in the cellar, Pete had explained over and over about how he had managed to kidnap the famous Sherlock Holmes; about the specimen cabinet, about the special silicon-coated ball bearing runners he had cleverly installed underneath. So quiet, you could push the massive cabinet out from the wall without anyone hearing a sound. About the trigger mechanism inside 223b.

One last time, Pete would use this secret passage into 221b. Then, they would take Sherlock’s poison and go to Pete’s ex-wife, and make her pay for her crime of infidelity.

Then, they would address the crimes of John Watson. Hopefully, in Lestrade’s flat. That seemed most appropriate, Pete suggested, and Sherlock could not agree more.

Pete had been monitoring the movements in Baker Street as much as he could since their return from the Isle of Man. It did not appear that John was staying in 221b. Pete reported this to Sherlock with a look of pity, which made Sherlock turn away.

* * *

While dozing in the chair in 221b, a memory came rushing upon John’s subconscious, unbidden.

When he and Sherlock had left 221b with Lady Holmes, bound for her Yorkshire estate all those months ago, it had been because the construction racket in the Baker Street was detrimental to John’s fragile mental health – post-traumatic stress disorder and retrograde amnesia.

As they left in Lady Holmes’ chauffeured Rolls Royce, he now suddenly recalled that there had been workers in fluorescent vests, coming and going in the street. Like the vests of the patrol officers in the street, right now. Like the vests of the workers, earlier, on the Isle of Man. He tried to concentrate - where exactly, had the construction workers in Baker Street been going?

Those days were very hard to remember, the days after his release from hospital. His amnesia had been almost at its worst, then. Even now, most of that time was lost to him, only little flashes occasionally shone through the permanent fog.

He reached to dial Lestrade on his mobile. Suddenly it was very important to tell him about the construction workers . . . He stood up to look out the windows, see if Lestrade might be walking out in the street below.

Maybe he would just go down into Baker Street himself.

* * *

Sherlock was standing very close to Pete. Pete had been checking the secret video feed into 221b. And had seen John enter the flat, just moments ago. Alone.

Pete turned to Sherlock with manic excitement. "It’s a sign – he’s here. John’s here. We have to do it now. Right now. Don’t you see, it’s perfect. It’s like he came, came for you," Pete said ecstatically.

"I need the knife," Sherlock said, his eyes burning into Pete’s. A magnetic pull between them, that Sherlock had been drawing closer, ever closer, finally conquered any final resistance. Pete handed Sherlock a folding hunting knife that he kept in his pocket. He had another at his belt. He hesitated, then said, "We have to move fast, take him by surprise."

"It has to be me, first, then, through that passage," Sherlock said. "If he sees me first, he won’t attack. He’ll be too shocked. We have that in our favor. This won’t be anything like killing those women, you know. He probably has a gun." Pete was glowing with eagerness. He drew a little pistol of his own, nodding to indicate his agreement. They were ready.

They knelt on the floor. Pete pulled up the hidden panel in the wall, and Sherlock could see the back of the cabinet in 221b. There was a small switch here and Sherlock pressed it. He looked one last time at Pete, their eyes meeting in perfect understanding of the beauty of vengeance.

Sherlock crawled forward, pushing the cabinet. It glided as silently as Pete had promised. Pete was just behind, almost on top of him. When Sherlock had pushed the cabinet all the way out, the light from 221b shining through, he kicked back hard into Pete’s face and without hesitating whipped around and sank his blade deep into his neck, withdrawing it with a vicious jerk. And turned away as Pete’s eyes, shocked with the understanding of the deepest betrayal of all, began to dim.

It was time to finish his business here.

Sherlock crawled through the little opening, and stood in 221b as if for the first time.

He now knew it had been nearly five months. He swayed there, overwhelmed, the bloody knife still clutched in his hand. The door to 221b was cracked open, but John was gone. Sherlock was struck with a powerful feeling of deja vu. The flat looked just as he had last seen it, he thought.

Time seemed to have come full circle, brought him back to where he started. Only one thing was lacking.

Now there was sound of footsteps climbing the stair, and Sherlock went to meet them.

* * *

Lestrade pushed open the door of 221b, surprised to find it half open, and barely had time to register that it was not John there but Sherlock Holmes speeding towards him, disheveled, delirious-looking, and holding a bloody knife before Sherlock had landed him a crashing punch to the jaw, sending him flying. He had the merest moment to feel surprise that Sherlock wasn’t carving him up with that knife through the rain of ferocious blows. He punched back blindly, and was rewarded with a single cry of pain that nevertheless, did not stop the onslaught.

It seemed that Sherlock wasn’t actually trying to kill him just now, though. He could see that the knife was on the floor. Abruptly as it had started, the attack stopped and Lestrade found himself slumped on the floor, up against the wall, both eyes swelling shut and blood leaking from pretty much everywhere on his face.

He heard footsteps coming up the stair through the ringing in his ears. He grinned stupidly at Sherlock through his bleeding lips. Now he understood what this was about.

"Give us a moment, then, Sherlock, and I’m up for round two," he said, spitting blood into his lap.

* * *

John entered 221b to the unreal spectacle of Sherlock kneeling on the floor, panting breathlessly, and Lestrade half rising, clearly having been beaten halfway to a pulp. The exultant, electric shock of seeing Sherlock real, Sherlock alive surged through him but before he could even speak Sherlock’s name, he froze as Sherlock reached to picked up a bloody knife from the floor.

Sherlock looked up then, and his eyes met John’s with a look so lost and empty that it killed his rising joy instantly.

Sherlock pressed the point of the knife to his chest.

"Right through my heart, John. Go on, then. Why not just do it. You already have." Sherlock whispered and John knew then that Sherlock knew everything.

"Sherlock, stop!" he cried, reaching for that knife.

Lestrade had finally drawn his gun and trained it on Sherlock. "Drop it, Sherlock, now," he ordered. But Sherlock didn’t, just shaking his head strangely. Lestrade could see his eyes finally, and he saw nothing there but madness.

"Sherlock, I’m warning you," he said, louder, standing up now. John was shouting now too – for Lestrade to stop, for Sherlock to put down the knife, but then Sherlock went to rise up and John just tackled him, knocking him back to the ground, the knife flying. Lestrade picked it up.

All of the fight seemed to go out of Sherlock and he lay quietly on the floor, John sprawled over him. John roughly pushed away Lestrade’s hands when he tried to tear John away.

Sherlock ignored John and looked up at Lestrade. "If he won’t, you may as well do it," He nodded at Lestrade’s gun. "Go ahead. It’s what you want, anyway."

"Christ, you’re mad, Sherlock, shut up! John, come away, he’s ill, can’t you see? He’ll hurt you."

John shook his head. "Let him," he said. "Just let him."

For a long minute John and Sherlock looked at each other, deep feeling, wordless but clear vibrating between them until Lestrade had the grace to look away, ashamed.

 

To be continued . . .


	11. Life Clock.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Eleven. Life Clock.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 5,400  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

 

I took a walk around the world  
To ease my troubled mind -  
I left my body laying somewhere  
In the sands of time.  
But I watched the world float  
To the dark side of the moon -  
I feel there is nothing I can do.

I watched the world float  
To the dark side of the moon.  
After all, I knew it had to be  
Something to do with you -  
I really don’t mind what happens now and then -  
As long as you’ll be my friend at the end.

If I go crazy then will you still  
Call me Superman?  
If I’m alive and well, will you be  
There holding my hand?  
I’ll keep you by my side  
With my superhuman might  
Kryptonite

Lyrics to Kryptonite, all rights reserved Universal Music and 3 Doors Down

　

　

Sherlock doubled up in pain on the floor of 221b, clutching his side.

"Where’s Jack Ramsay?" Lestrade shouted, still holding his gun. Sherlock did not answer.

"What’s hurting you," John asked urgently, pulling up Sherlock’s shirt and gently moving Sherlock’s hands. He did not resist, and John was horrified to see a badly healed wound under just above his pelvic bone.

"What is this?"

Sherlock would not, or could not answer. He was biting his lips as if against sharp pain.

"Lestrade, did you hit him," John asked, voice shaking.

"Of course I bloody did! He came at me out of nowhere – it’s a lucky thing I didn’t shoot him!"

"Shut up, Greg. How – how dare you – anyone can see he’s very sick. Call an ambulance - NOW. I’m taking him to Barts."

Lestrade knew better than to defend himself. Especially now. He made the call.

"Sherlock, you have to tell us, where is Jack Ramsay?" he asked again. Sherlock was slow to respond, but finally nodded his head toward the opening in the wall. Then Sherlock seemed to drift off to another place. Lestrade radioed for Donovan. And with one last glance at John, who was ministering to Sherlock with such blazing love written in his face that it hurt him, deeply, even to look upon it, Lestrade bent down with his gun drawn and climbed through the passage into 223b. He ignored the blood dripping from his face.

He would tend to his own wounds.

He always did.

Time to do his job.

* * *

At Barts, it was quickly determined that Sherlock had unresolved peritonitis with acute abdominal sepsis, and that in his furious brawl with Lestrade had reopened an internal infectious wound and that he had internal bleeding.

Sherlock’s condition was complicated by the long-term drugs he had been forced to ingest, a very new synthetic club drug that was both sedating and hallucinogenic, and his generally underfed and dehydrated condition. He was quickly prepared for surgery.

John insisted on assisting the finest specialist surgeon available; he shook off his own sleep deprivation, a common enough factor during his years doing field surgery in Afghanistan. He could cope. But his heart was wrung by Sherlock’s pathetic condition, which occasionally made his eyes fill with tears that he had to blink away, hard.

* * *

Sergeant Donovan had a dilemma. The duffle bag John had found in Mike Ramsay’s house, which contained Jack’s ‘murder kit’ had, after some jurisdictional wrangling, been delivered into the custody of the Yard. And had thence made its way, ultimately, to her desk. The techies had broken the rather sophisticated passcode encryption to the portable hard drive, but it was her task to make a preliminary inventory of the contents of the drive.

And having done so, she had found films of what seemed to be surveillance of the murder victims from before their abduction; horrible films of the murders themselves; films of Sherlock in the stark cellar; and surveillance of the comings and goings from 221b Baker Street. And then, shockingly, surveillance of the inside of 221b. The murderer had been quite the peeping Tom. What she saw in these films surprised her.

But in some ways the most shocking of all, was surveillance footage of the inside of Lestrade’s flat. She not been there often, but she recognized it clearly. And what she saw was so intimate, so delicate, that she simply could not bring herself to just pass this video on as part of the chain of evidence in this case. For everyone to see: the Yard, the Crown Prosecutors, defense counsel, the judge, and jury. Worst of all, Lestrade. John Watson.

And Sherlock Holmes.

Sally had fleeting, conflicting feelings of – malice? – that she pushed aside as unworthy. As arrogant, insufferable, and unstable as the man was, Sherlock didn’t deserve this, not on top of what she understood he had suffered already.

Tempting as it was, she also knew she could not just delete it. That would come back to haunt her, quite easily. Everything left an electronic trail; everyone knew that.

No, things were not that simple.

Who could she trust? She knew she could not involve Lestrade himself; he must be protected.

Finally, with great trepidation, she dialed a number that she had been given to use, just once.

"This is an unexpected . . . pleasure, Sergeant Donovan. How can I help? Because I am very sure you would not be calling me unless you desperately needed it. Or is it — someone close to you?" Mycroft said.

"I need to see you," she said. "And you’re right. It’s not for me. Not exactly."

* * *

Sherlock’s condition was quite stubborn. He did not greatly improve after surgery. Once he awoke, he remained feverish and did not seem to really know, or care, where he was.

John stayed with him constantly, and brought a reclining chair into the room to use as a makeshift bed. He quickly became very alarmed at Sherlock’s failure to rally. He was afraid he knew the cause. John had seen this, often enough, in Afghanistan. A soldier that lost the will to live would slip away, even if he might well have been saved. Others, with much worse injuries, might live – if they just remained determined to hang on.

When Sherlock slept, John held his hand, kissed his forehead, and declared passionately, over, and over, and over again how much he loved him, how sorry he was, how he would do everything in his power to make everything up to him, make everything right, if only Sherlock would just try to be well again. Sometimes, in his sleep, Sherlock would open his eyes, unseeing, like a sleepwalker. "John, why don’t you come? When are you coming?" He said plaintively, more than once, shattering John’s spirit. When he reached out to him and said, "I’m here, Sherlock, it’s John," he would wake – and pull away.

But when Sherlock was awake, he coldly told John to leave him alone, and turned his face to the wall as well as he was able, hooked as he was to various tubes. At those times, he refused to listen at all to anything John had to say, and buzzed the emergency button over and over for the nurse to demand with as much strength as he possessed that he be left alone by Doctor Watson. Confused, the nurses looked questioningly to John. Sometimes, John did leave, just so that Sherlock would be calm again.

Usually Lady Holmes would sit with them, too. She would take his place when John felt compelled leave in the face of Sherlock’s steadfast rejection. One morning, though, after Sherlock had been in hospital about a week, Lady Holmes stopped John in the hall on the way to Sherlock’s room.

"Is he all right?" John asked anxiously. Sherlock’s fever had come back a little in the night. Lady Holmes took John’s hand. As always, he was struck by how much Lady Holmes and Sherlock were alike. At least in Lady Holmes’ face, John could still find love.

"John, I don’t quite know how to tell you this. I’m afraid that Sherlock has . . . well, he’s discharged you. As his doctor. He has a new doctor, Doctor Browne, I believe. Sherlock refuses to let anyone into his room but immediate family; well, me really– I don’t think he really wants to see Mycroft, either; he never does. He caused strict instructions to be left at the desk . . .John, I did try to speak to him, to reason with him. I can’t get through to him at all. I think, after all, you should give him some time to himself," she said carefully. "He needs to get well. And . . .well, I think that you are upsetting him."

There was a long, empty silence.

"John, I love you like a son. I know you know that. But Sherlock is my son, and I must get him through this. You’ve done all you could. But . . ."

John swallowed hard over the huge lump in his throat. "Please don’t trouble yourself, Lady Holmes," he said quite formally. "Of course I shall do as Sherlock asks. May I call you, sometimes, to see how he is?"

Lady Holmes embraced him, her eyes finally spilling pent-up tears on his shoulder. "Every day, John. Every hour, if you like. I’m so sorry."

"No," John said brokenly. "I’m the one who’s sorry."

He left Barts and after walking the streets in grey London drizzle for what seemed hours, he took the tube to the Baker Street station. It was time for John Watson to find new lodgings.

* * *

Mycroft had quickly appreciated Donovan’s dilemma. "I must applaud you for your discretion and loyalty," he said. Sally frowned. "Doesn’t mean I want Lestrade to know anything about it, though, does it?" She said defiantly. She had been afraid that Mycroft might not be willing to involve himself in this rather personal problem that did not, in any way that she could readily identify, affect him.

In fact, she had always understood that Mycroft and his brother enjoyed the frostiest of filial relations. Yet, her instinct had been that Mycroft would wish to spare Sherlock this. Mycroft only watched the merest few seconds of John and Lestrade, entering the flat and almost tumbling into the bedroom, before shutting the video off.

"Come back in half an hour," Mycroft said. "You can’t afford to have tagged evidence out of the Yard for this long. Leave now. When you come back, I shall return this to you. No one must know you came to me," he said. Sally nodded curtly and stalked off. He looked after speculatively for a moment, wondering at her reasons for wanting to protect Lestrade from this. Did she harbor . . .feelings for him? That would be truly unfortunate.

Mycroft quickly manipulated the video through a complex scrubbing program. Soon, it was quite gone.

Not, however, before Mycroft had been (almost, but not quite inadvertently) able to see a fair sample of John and Lestrade’s passionate encounter. He identified that John was very conflicted and thought he even saw the glitter of tears in his eyes. The lighting was quite good.

He also identified that watching Greg Lestrade, like this, caused him to experience an exquisitely painful sensation that he preferred to bury, and bury deep.

Mycroft had a strict policy to never, ever torment himself over something that he just couldn’t have.

And it had been very clear, for a very long time, that Greg Lestrade’s heart belonged entirely to Doctor John Watson.

* * *

Lestrade stopped at 221b Baker Street to find John carefully packing his things. He hadn’t phoned ahead, knowing that John wouldn’t agree to see him. Hadn’t, in fact, since the return of Sherlock Holmes. Matters relating to the investigation, he had been forced to channel through Donovan. John would not answer his mobile, and ignored his endless messages. He had understood (or rather, tried to) when John had been at Barts, tending to Sherlock’s illness.

Now, however, he had learned that John had somehow been evicted from the medical team treating Sherlock. Lady Holmes had told him that so far as she knew, John had been staying at 221b.

The stack of suitcases by the door brought back the bittersweet moment, the single happiest in his life, when John had turned to him, and had come into his arms. He knew now that would never happen again. He had struggled to try and accept this, to master his feelings, to get to the other side of it, somehow. But nothing seemed to help.

"John, where will you go?" He asked.

"I’m going to stay with Harry. For a bit," John said. "She’s been having a bit of trouble, and, well, frankly, so am I. To say the least." He gave a short, painful laugh. "We’re going to give it a go."

"John —"

John held up his hands. "No, Greg. Don’t. It’s my fault. It’s not your fault. I know I should have called you back, I should have spoken to you before now. I just — I can’t believe what a mess I’ve made. Of all of our lives. I’m so sorry."

Lestrade’s heart sank even lower. "Sorry? Fault? I’m not sorry, damn you. I love you, I don’t understand why that’s not enough. Why it’s never been enough. I’m not sorry, I’ll never be sorry," he said impetuously. "We thought he was dead, you did, and I did. You know that. We’ve nothing to be ashamed of."

John just shook his head. They would never feel the same about this. "Greg. Please don’t. Just don’t. I don’t want to make anything worse than it already is. It’s my fault, I never should have been weak. I should have been stronger. For all of us."

"Can you honestly say you wish we had never — " John was silent, but his face said everything. "God. John. I can’t believe —"

"Believe it!" John fairly shouted with anguish. "Because I will never stop loving Sherlock, and that’s all that there is. It’s all that I have left. Please, let it go, let it go now, let me go, Greg. I’m begging you."

Lestrade made a step as though to try and embrace John, but John stepped resolutely back.

Crushed, Lestrade stormed out of 221b for what he swore was the last time.

* * *

A week later, back at Barts Hospital, Sherlock was hovering in a weak and feverish state, not improving much, but not getting worse either. Lady Holmes sat patiently with him, actually encouraged whenever he became snappish. That, she knew, was a sign that he was feeling stronger. But always, he reverted to frightening silences.

No one had told her why Sherlock had closed his heart to John. Eugenia Holmes was a very observant woman, easily as observant as her brilliant sons, and possibly even more so. No one had to tell her. She had seen John and Lestrade together, lately. And had seen the expressions on each of John, Lestrade, and Sherlock’s faces.

She knew precisely what the difficulty was. And she also knew who was going to have to repair it.

Sherlock was staring listlessly at the television news. Lady Holmes did not want him following news of the investigation and upcoming murder trial of Mike Ramsay, it kept him mired in the evil memories of his ordeal.

Mike Ramsay had been determined to have been an accessory after the fact to the murders of the four female victims, as well as a prime actor in the kidnapping of Sherlock Holmes – all crimes originating in London – and accordingly, the entire investigation had been brought under Scotland Yard’s jurisdiction. This was entirely agreeable to the populace of Mann, whose peaceful and prosperous shores had been deeply shaken by these pitiless crimes.

It had been quickly discovered that Mike Ramsay had been temporarily assigned to London’s Metropolitan Police for a six month period, just prior to the first murder. He had been part of an interchange program for talented officers from more remote jurisdictions to acquire experience with fighting urban crime. Mike Ramsay had been attached to the Met’s vice unit. This, it was deduced, was where he had acquired the large quantity of drugs that had kept Sherlock subdued for so long.

This was how also how Jack Ramsay had been able to identify his ideal female victims, all of whom strongly resembled each other. Jack had been a computer genius of sorts. He had worked in Naval Intelligence before his dishonorable discharge for sexually assaulting a woman on base – a crime for which he narrowly escaped jail time due to the intervention of his brother Mike, pulling a few strings.

During his short tenure with the Met, Mike Ramsay had access to the Met’s photo database of criminals, including prostitutes. Jack had been able to use his digital photo profile of his ideal victim, the lovely silent actress Anny Ondra, to sort through the hundreds of mug shot photos to find the women who most closely resembled Ondra. Hair dye, makeup, and a very particular short white nightdress completed the transformation.

And so, Sherlock’s deduction all those months ago, that the killer had an accomplice, was proved correct.

It would be a long time before Mike Ramsay was willing to tell the entire story, though.

Lady Holmes took the remote away from Sherlock and switched off the television. Sherlock paid her no attention, but merely looked absently at the ceiling and plucked at his IV line.

"Sherlock."

He tilted his head, just slightly, to indicate that he was deigning to listen to his mother.

"Sherlock. I have something to say to you."

There was a deep, tragic-sounding sigh. Lady Holmes tried to be forbearing. She knew that he was truly suffering.

But, enough was enough.

"I know you don’t like to speak of your father. But I must."

Sherlock scowled.

"You were very young when he disappeared. Borneo was very wild and dangerous then, I believe it still is. And you know, I hoped for a long time that there was an explanation for why he could not contact me, to tell me he was all right. The uncertainty, the not knowing, was an unbearable torment. I was so afraid I had lost your father. I never slept, I didn’t eat, I saw no one. Including you and Mycroft, I’m afraid. During those first months, I don’t know what I would have done without Fredericka, my maid, and McLeod, the housekeeper. They took care of you and your brother, and helped me keep my strength up, as well. I believe I might have gone straight out of my mind, if it hadn’t been for them."

Sherlock said, "How did you know he was dead?"

"Well, you know they never found his body. And for a long time, I kept hope alive, but . . . everyone said he had to be dead. We did everything we could – but found nothing at all, not a single trace. And finally, I just came to accept it. Your father would never have put us through this if he had lived. No, I don’t believe we will ever know what became of him, but I do know he is dead."

"And?" Sherlock said almost arrogantly, defying her to try and affect him with this old tale. He refused to be moved.

"And, there came a day, when I was so very alone, lonely, and frightened, that I did something that I regret very much."

Now Sherlock was looking at her with a strained expression – he wanted to know, and yet he did not.

"No, listen. This is not easy for me to say. This is such a long time ago, now. You remember Edward Mallory, your father’s colleague." Sherlock nodded. A fellow ethnobotanist, he had come sometimes to visit their household both before and after his father’s disappearance. "Well. You never knew, but Edward was in love with me. As much as a man can be, without encouragement. I never gave him any. I would admit it, if I had. One day, Edward came up to Yorkshire — some plants for the greenhouse, he said; but really, he wanted . . .me. You and Mycroft were away at school. Your father had been gone, without a word, for months. And – well, I needed someone. Something. Something to hold onto. Someone to help me not be alone. Something to make me feel . . . .alive."

Sherlock’s frosty gaze gave no sign of comprehending in the slightest what she meant. She sighed. Sherlock truly was not like other people. Feelings were often far from him, and hard for him to understand, let alone access.

But she knew one thing. He loved John Watson. And yet, he was doing everything in his power to deny this love.

"Please do not try to excuse your lack of faith, Mother. Or John’s," he said sharply.

"Oh, Sherlock, don’t you understand? I regretted it every moment, then and since. I hurt a very fine man. And I hurt myself, too. We both thought your father was dead . . . but . . . it was wrong of me to do that, to Edward, who cared for me so . . .and to myself, because my heart belonged to your father, then, and always will. The time I had with him was all there will ever be. But I understand what happened between Edward and I, and why. And I suppose you could say, with the distance of time . . . I can even forgive myself.

"I have a question for you, Sherlock: When have you ever forgiven anyone? Yourself, or anyone else? Because unless you learn to forgive, you will be alone for the rest of your life."

"That," Sherlock said coldly, "Is perfectly acceptable."

Lady Holmes shook her head sadly at Sherlock. "It never will be, and you know it," she said, her voice trembling, and rose to leave him alone in his hospital room.

When she came back a while later, a little more composed, the bed was empty.

Sherlock was gone.

* * *

Winter was beginning to give way to a cold and dismal London spring. John tried constantly to call Sherlock, but he had apparently thrown his mobile away. It eventually stopped even ringing. He wrote letters, actual love letters, full of remorse, that were returned unopened. He went around often to Lady Holmes’ London home, and she always made John very welcome, but said only that Sherlock was safe but did not want to see him.

"Just tell me where he is," John begged. His head ached. He had taken to drinking too much at The Gunmaker’s and was afraid that Lady Holmes would find his generally pathetic and semi-inebriated state unsavory. But she gave no sign of minding, just handing him cups of strong coffee rather than her customary tea.

"Well, I have to admit that at first, I didn’t know. But McLeod called me yesterday. Sherlock is in Yorkshire. At Riddleston Hall."

Riddleston Hall. John and Sherlock had missed the promised Christmas, last year, during Sherlock’s long captivity. Lady Holmes had gone up to Yorkshire alone. Despite her urging, John had stayed behind, unable to face any sort of Christmas cheer.

"He won’t speak to me, you know," John said for the hundredth time. Lady Holmes didn’t know what to say any more. He put down his coffee, half-finished. "I have to go now," he said, shrugging into his jacket and going back out into the damp evening. She offered to have her driver take him back to Harry’s, but he declined.

He made a stop back at 221b, to which he still had a key. There was something there that he needed.

* * *

Kings Cross station had a nightly train to Harrogate, the nearest station to Riddleston Hall. That night, John took it. He carried no luggage, but clutched a paper bag containing a wrapped parcel. He watched the city lights give way to suburbs, then towns, then open countryside. Every mile was taking him closer to Sherlock and he tried to feel hopeful.

It was very late when he arrived at the station, but there was a car agent still open and he hired a car, hoping he could find the way. He called McLeod on his mobile from the station.

"Captain Watson!" She exclaimed. "I never was so glad to hear a voice in my life! Lady Holmes told me about your trouble," she said solemnly. "I’m sorry to say that Mister Sherlock has always been quite heartless, you know. Always. Before you, sir, I should have said," she amended.

"I’m in Harrogate, McLeod. I have to see him. Will you let me in the gates? I’m coming down now," he said. She did not protest about the hour, and said she would send the stableboy down to unlock the great iron gates of Riddleston Hall. "Shall I tell Mister Sherlock you’re coming?" she asked uncertainly.

"No. I want to at least get my foot in the door. If he throws me out, well – I’ll find a hotel."

McLeod began tisking, scandalized at this, but John rung off. There were still miles to go until he got to Riddleston Hall. To Sherlock.

This time, he would have his say.

* * *

The lamps on the gates of Riddleston Hall shone brightly at the end of the long country lane, and he climbed out of the car to push them open. There was a steady freezing rain over Yorkshire. Snow still dotted the ground and hilltops here and there. He was immediately soaked to the skin, but drove on.

McLeod had told him that Sherlock had been staying in Smith’s Cottage, the former blacksmith’s cottage in the wood behind the great house. Soon his headlamps were shining against the windowpanes of the little stone cottage. A dim light shone through the curtains and smoke was coming from the chimney. John was making no effort to be quiet and slammed the car door. He banged on the door to the cottage, but there was no answer. His heart was skiddering with some electric thrill, just to see Sherlock’s face, hear his voice - even if it was only to throw him out again. But only after he had his say.

He tried the door handle, and was surprised that the door opened. The heavy old wooden door bolted from the inside, but Sherlock hadn’t bolted it. He threw the door open wide, and stepped into the cottage, freezing water dripping everywhere. His paper bag was sodden and tearing.

Sherlock was here, standing in front of the fireplace, staring at the open door. He gave no sign of being surprised, though. He looked as if he had just been waiting there for a long time, for John to come. John’s heart swelled, praying that this might be true.

"I have something to give you," John said, very fast in case Sherlock should toss him out. But Sherlock just looked at him, almost curiously. He made no move either toward him, or to throw him out. John tore away the wet paper bag and gave Sherlock the little parcel, which he had carefully wrapped in gift paper. The ribbon had fallen off somewhere. He didn’t think Sherlock would notice, though.

Sherlock accepted it, and stared at it in his hands.

"What is it?" He said. His voice sounded as empty and lost as that very first day, when he returned, as if from the dead, through the wall of 221b.

"Just open it," John said. And so Sherlock did, tearing off the paper to reveal the black glass box of his life clock, glowing red digits running down the second, minutes, and hours remaining of Sherlock’s life span.

"I want you to know that when you were gone, I took this from your room and I looked at it every night before I went to sleep. When I slept. Anyway, it’s every minute, every second that I was never going to get to have with you, and — it helped me somehow.

But one day, I just couldn’t bear any more. Do you see how many there are, Sherlock? So many. It’s almost inconceivable. And that day, I couldn’t do it alone. Anymore. And that’s when I fell. With Lestrade. I know now that you’ll never forgive me. I’m not saying you should. And so, I wanted you to have this back. Because I think it’s you that should have it. It’s all the minutes of the rest of your life on this earth. That we’ll be apart. That I won’t have you. And you won’t have me. Maybe you’ll just throw it away. But maybe you’ll keep it. If you do, I hope you'll think of me. Sometimes."

Sherlock just looked at him, speechless. He held the box tightly, watching the running numbers. But he didn’t say anything, either. John nodded. He understood. But he had had his say. He opened the door to go back out into the rain.

"I just wish . . ..you could try to forget, Sherlock. I don’t even ask you to forgive me. But I would do anything in the world, anything at all, to help you forget what we did – what I did — and start again. But you won’t forget, will you?"

Silence.

"Goodbye, Sherlock."

He closed the door gently behind him and didn’t even notice his tears in the rain.

* * *

He stopped at Riddleston Hall on the way out, because McLeod had implored him not to go without seeing her. She was standing out under the enormous front portico with a huge umbrella, looking out for his car. He pulled up to the door and let McLeod draw him inside.

She brought him straight to the kitchen that he had so loved, when he had stayed here last. A time that had brought much trouble as well as happiness, because this was where he had recovered from amnesia, and also when he had realized that, memory or not, he was madly, hopelessly in love with Sherlock Holmes. Well, that still was something that would never change, but that he would have to learn to live with.

McLeod gave him a glass of red wine. He drank it down slowly as they talked about simple things, avoiding the terrible topic foremost in both their thoughts. Instead, they spoke of the new foal expected from Mephisto and Czarina; the prospects for his foxhound pup, Lucky. He doubted very much if he would ever see Lucky run with the hunt. McLeod told him about changes in Riddleston Hall since Sherlock had returned.

"He’s not going back to London, he says. He’s going to stay here and help Lady Holmes manage the estate," she said dubiously. John had never heard anything that expressed how fully Sherlock intended to make a break from the past than this; and so, he left the last of his wine and kissed McLeod on her rosy cheek, thanking her for all her many kindnesses to him.

"Won’t you stay, sir? It’s a crime for you to go back out in this awful rain, you can have your old green room," She begged.

"No, McLeod, I think it’s better I don’t overstay my welcome. I can still catch a train back to London. If I hurry," He said. This was actually not true. Possibly he would just drive all the way back to London.

It really didn’t matter.

* * *

He drove slowly in driving rain back down the great alley of ancient elms to the gates of Riddleston Hall, and climbed back out again to pull them open. But when he did, they were locked on him again. He cursed, the northern rain was threatening to turn to sleet. He turned to climb into the car and call back up to the house for the stableboy to bring the key. He was shivering.

There was a shout, and he looked around.

"John!! John !!"

 

Through the trees he saw Sherlock's great black hunter Mephisto, with a tall rider, galloping. It was Sherlock. He flung himself off and ran to John, his face white and desperate. John thought he would never forget this moment. They stood, just looking, and Sherlock shouted over the torrential rain,

"John — John, you have to teach me. How to forget. Because I can’t, I can’t. But I — want to try. I have to try. Please, John — show me how to forget," and John took him in his arms then, and kissed him tenderly, with all the love that had so long been denied, everything he had and was and ever would be.

 

To be continued . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The horse Sherlock rides to intercept John at the gates of Riddleston Hall, Sherlock's hunter, Mephisto, was introduced in "Irresistibility of Orbits Pt. 2- The Forgetting of Things Past," in which we learned that Lady Holmes breeds hunter/jumpers, and that Sherlock is an accomplished horseman.


	12. Untended Fires.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Twelve. Untended Fires.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 4,700  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In The Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Twelve. Untended Fires.

 

I want you  
It's the stupid details that my heart is breaking for:  
It's the way your shoulders shake, and what they're shaking for-  
I want you  
it's knowing that he knows you now, after only guessing:  
It's the thought of him undressing you – or you undressing.  
I want you  
He tossed some tatty compliment your way –  
And you were fool enough to love it when he said, "I want you."  
The truth can't hurt you, it's just like the dark:  
It scares you witless,  
But in time you see things clear and stark.  
I want you  
Go on and hurt me – then we'll let it drop.  
I'm afraid I won't know where to stop.  
I'm not ashamed to say I cried for you-  
I want to know the things you did - that we do, too -  
I want to hear he pleases you more than I do.  
I might as well be useless, for all it means to you.  
Did you call his name out as he held you down?  
 

 

　Lyrics to I Want You, All Rights reserved Declan McManus/Elvis Costello

 

After Mycroft discreetly scrubbed the disc drive of the offending video from Lestrade’s flat, Donovan spent long hours watching what was left, which was in many places so horrifying as to leave even she, hardened to the most brutal of murders, feeling ill and degraded.

There were also many hours, almost indistinguishable from one another, of Sherlock alone in the cellar, and together with Jack Ramsay. Donovan watched with fascination as she saw Sherlock draw Jack to him, hour by hour, day by day, ever closer, with a clever magnetism that had more than a touch of deliberate sexuality that he deployed as brilliantly and ruthlessly as he could, sick and drugged as he was, against Jack Ramsay. And yet, he had remained a helpless captive for almost five months.

Sally had personally tripled the security in her own flat, so terrified by how easily even Sherlock Holmes had been overtaken.

There was one part of the videotape that puzzled her, though. She had sent it to be enhanced, and this had helped, a little. There was a day, or night – there was no difference, in that cellar – maybe a week after Sherlock had first appeared – that Jack had given a long knife to Sherlock. He had one too. Sherlock was clearly quite out of his mind with drugs. The light to the door at the top of the stair had appeared. She could make out shadows, but not the figure, coming down the stair.

And then someone had deliberately erased the rest of whatever had happened next.

When the video resumed, it had jumped ahead to Jack bending over Sherlock, clearly frantic, Sherlock bleeding and delirious. And at the top of the stair, just the last flicker of shadows as the door to the top of the stair closed again.

What had happened here?

She had decided that clearly, the shadow on the stair had been Jack’s brother, Mike Ramsay, currently awaiting trial in Her Majesty’s jail at London’s Pentonville Prison, where the infamous John Reginald Halliday Christie had been hung in 1953, for the wicked murders at 10 Rillington Place.

The problem was, there was the suggestion of . . . a second shadow. Had someone else been involved in holding Sherlock captive?

More importantly, had someone else been involved in the murders?

* * *

Sherlock and John returned to Smith’s Cottage in the ceaseless downpour, and without any need for words cast off their soaked clothing and wrapped themselves in blankets against the bone-chilling northern rain. They sat on the old sagging sofa by the fire quietly, listening to the crackle. John wanted to say so much, but Sherlock seemed content now just to be. He didn’t want to overwhelm Sherlock, who John felt still seemed, perhaps, a little . . .wary.

After their embrace in the rain, John felt almost shy, as though he wasn’t really permitted to touch him now. After Sherlock had pulled away so many times. And despite wanting to cherish every second that had miraculously been given back to him, the months of sorrow, anxiety and sleeplessness now came crashing down, and sleep took him.

Sherlock had been waiting for this. When he was certain John was fast asleep, he pulled him gently down, then settled next to him, arranging his gangly arms and legs. He intended to watch John’s face while he slept, something that had been a secretly cherished habit.

But he only had a few moments to search the outlines of John’s dear face in the firelight, as though remembering the words to a well-loved song, before his own eyes closed and his head sunk against John’s shoulder.

Rain lashed the windows all through the night.

* * *

Lestrade and Donovan were looking at the murder video together.

She pointed at the suggestion of shadow.

"Sir, what do you think? I’m starting to think, maybe – it’s another victim. I can’t believe the brothers would bring an outsider into this. But another victim — Maybe Mike actually did kill one. What if we don’t have all the victims," she said, agonized.

She hated cases where they couldn’t find them all, could become haunted by the thought of those lost bodies, unknown, alone.

She was getting that creeping feeling when she looked at this strange shadow.

"Let’s have another chat with our man Ramsay," Lestrade said impassively.

* * *

John awoke to the sensation of the entire couch shaking. The cottage was utterly freezing. The fire had long gone out, only the merest glow of fading embers remained. Sherlock was still wrapped around him, but he was shivering hard.

"Sherlock, you’re freezing – why didn’t you tend the fire?"

"Didn’t – want — to — wake — you —" Sherlock said between chattering teeth.

"Jesus, you’ll catch pneumonia next," John scolded, moving to go fetch more wood. But Sherlock wouldn’t let him go. "Not yet – hold me, you make me warm," Sherlock said. John made a valiant effort, wrapping him tightly with blankets and his own arms, rubbing Sherlock’s chilled limbs hard. And everything did get warmer.

The shivering stopped, and John reluctantly unwound himself from Sherlock's arms and revived the fire with fresh wood, then climbed back in under the blankets. Their cold noses brushed.

"It was always cold." Sherlock said remotely. "I always remember that."

John knew he was speaking of the evil cellar where he had been held captive. John held him tighter. "I'm so sorry," he whispered.

Sherlock could always read John's feelings in his face, in his voice, and knew that he meant - for everything.

"I know. . . that you are."

"I'm going to prove it to you, every day," John said determinedly, looking at Sherlock very seriously. "I swear I will." Finally he couldn't restrain himself any longer and kissed him, very softly, terrified that Sherlock would pull away again.

And was devastated when he did, gently but firmly.

* * *

Donovan was becoming increasingly concerned about Lestrade.

First had been the debacle on the Isle of Man, resulting in Lestrade’s suspension. He had been kicked off Black Team, a bitter blow.

When John had managed, alone, to crack the case, Lestrade had been reinstated to his regular duties – but she had witnessed a precipitous deterioration in his spirits since the incredible return of Sherlock Holmes.

And when she saw him at 223b with the corpse of Jack Ramsay, his own face beaten, bleeding, she asked him no questions, knowing he wouldn’t answer. Sherlock was back, and John Watson was gone from him.

Good riddance, she thought; she liked John very much, but he had brought Lestrade nothing but pain.

She felt unable to bridge the professional gap between them to offer him any sort of help. Not that she even could. She knew that. But he needed help, she knew that, too. She had never seen Lestrade as low as this. He hardly cared at all about the case any more, and it was starting to be noticed that he had started drinking, more than just a pint after work.

"Let’s get on it, sir. I have a feeling," she said.

He didn’t seem to be paying much attention. Finally he shook his head a little and said, wearily, "A feeling. Yes. All right then. Let’s go," as though the expedition to North London were an exceptionally burdensome one.

 

* * *

Finally, Sherlock broke the long painful silence.

"John . . . how? How could you? I feel — I feel whole again now you're here, better than I can remember since . . . but I can't stop thinking about it . . ."

John put his hands over his face. "I know. I will make it right. Just – give me a chance. You mean to, don't you?" It hadn't occurred to him that Sherlock might have second thoughts.

Sherlock, said, yes, but John could see it was costing him, a great deal. Sherlock simply did not generally permit emotional pain to enter his life.

When things became uncomfortable enough to become a distraction from his work, he simply contrived a way to delete them.

This had worked for him for his whole life, until John. Now, he had no frame of reference for navigating the unique pain that had been inflicted by John and Lestrade's infidelity, even betrayal, as he obviously saw it.

"Do you want to talk about this now?" John asked bravely.

"No – I don't ever want to, I don’t want to know -- I mean, yes . . . I have to. I have to know." John watched him struggle to articulate what he most needed to say.

" I wanted to die. Do you know that?"

John recalled the heart-stopping scene in 221b. "Sherlock. Never say that, never. I can't undo what I did. I would do anything if I could. But . . .there was never a second, even a fraction of a second, that I wasn't thinking of you. You have to believe me. And it was killing me, too. In a way. . . that's how it happened -- I just couldn't take it. There's been so much death . . . It seemed like – as if – there was just no end to it. And no one had a single clue. We thought you were dead, you know we did. And I just --- I wanted to feel alive. And you needed me and I didn't know how to find you. I'll never forgive myself."

Sherlock listened but, as with Lady Holmes, did not understand. Without John, if he lost John, he could not imagine anything on earth that would help him, make him feel anything at all. He had actually tried it, these past weeks, and he knew. Nevertheless, Lady Holmes' final advice rang in his ears. "Unless you learn to forgive, you will be alone the rest of your life."

"I want to feel alive, too," he said, finally, deliberately pulling John closer to him, and experimented with kissing John harder this time.

It worked.

He did feel alive.

"You have to forget, too," he said possessively. "Don’t you see — I can’t bear it that the last one to touch you like this, was him," Sherlock said hoarsely, pressing his forehead to John’s as though to take away a terrible ache. This was the pain that never left him.

"No, no, Sherlock – never like this. There’s nothing like you, like us."

Sherlock surprised him by rolling on top, stroking his face and his hair almost curiously, then kissing him deeply, taking John’s breath away. "No, there isn’t – never forget that again," he said roughly, warning. Every inch of John’s skin felt exquisitely sensitive to his touch, and he struggled not to push back, hard. "I don't ever want you thinking of him," Sherlock said.

Everything was in Sherlock’s hands. Even to be able to touch him felt tentative and new. Even the first time, he hadn’t felt like this. But he didn’t deserve more. So many times, they had played games, beautiful and decadent games in which Sherlock loved to beg – now it was John who bit his lips to stop himself begging, pleading for what he did not deserve, had no right to ask. In his wildest imaginings, when he had allowed himself to dream of what he would do, if they should ever be in each other’s arms again, he had thought that it would be him, comforting Sherlock, showing him the way.

But now he knew that he was the one that was lost, he was the one that had to be shown the way, and he was filled with rising sensations of wonder and gratitude, passion and love as Sherlock did, tentatively at first but increasingly surely, showing him that nothing in the world could ever be like this, this power that enveloped them both. Sherlock refused to leave any part of him untouched, unclaimed, until he was shuddering, full and hot with need and anticipation as Sherlock held them both back, returning over and over to kiss him, demanding, "Tell me again that you only love me, only me, never him," to which John could only helplessly gasp, "I love you so, only you, there’s nothing else," and Sherlock would still not be satisfied. As many times as they had burned for each other, brought each other to the farthest reaches of ecstasy, there had never been a fire like this, a longing that felt unquenchable, their hearts beating together a promise of forever, until Sherlock at last brought their trembling hands down together, stroking each other on the very edge of breaking through to an undiscovered place of pain that faded until to purest love where they spilled over, together, to that place of brightness, after so much dark.

* * *

Donovan and Lestrade drove to Islington. Pentonville Prison, opened in 1842, which had facilities for Category B prisoners, those just short of maximum security, but "for whom escape needed to be made very difficult."

The Victorian institution was notorious for overcrowding and had been subject of several recent scandals involving abuse of prisoners and misconduct of prison officials.

Mike Ramsay was being kept in solitary confinement. As a former police officer and accused accessory to a depraved serial killer, being held without bail pending his trial for kidnapping and murder, the strictest measures were being taken to keep him from being assassinated. Donovan tried to suppress fantasies of accidentally releasing Ramsay into the general population.

Ramsay had gained weight on the starchy prison food and was wearing a baggy, unwashed prison jumper. He did not smell particularly fresh. Ramsay was shackled to a metal table bolted to the floor, and his lawyer stood by, refusing to soil his crisp suit with the filthy chairs in the interview room.

Ramsay had family money, and was spending it freely on the best lawyer his money could buy, Toby Granville, Esq., a London superstar who had famously obtained an acquittal for a reality show star whose lover had been found hanged in their flat. Although videotape evidence showed no one entering or exiting the flat other than the victim and the accused, Granville was able to persuade an exceptionally gullible jury that the video may have been tampered with.

It was this, Donovan surmised, that had induced Ramsay to hire Granville, whose fee was said to be a minimum of £100,000.00. Donovan ignored his greedy eyes looking her figure up and down, and switched on the tape recorder. Lestrade stood by, seemingly only half attending to where they were. He had agreed to let her do the interview.

She decided to take the direct approach. She wasn’t really fond of tap dancing, and was notably lacking in patience.

"Tell us where the other woman is buried, Ramsay," she said bluntly. "We know all about it."

Ramsay glanced up at his lawyer, who shook his head.

"On advice of counsel, I decline to answer on grounds I may incriminate myself," he said steadily. But she didn’t like the look in his eye, or the easy way he sat in his chair.

He certainly didn’t seem surprised, she thought.

"Possibly the Crown Prosecutor might feel a bit more lenient – if you were a bit more talkative," she said, but knew that a copper would be fully aware of just how unlikely this was in a high-profile case such as this. But she had to try.

He smiled at her.

"Looks like this case has been good for you, Sergeant Donovan," he said in an encouraging way. "You’re moving up. You’ll make detective on this one, well done you."

She sneered. "I don’t much care, so long as we get our result. And we will, never fear. And if you’ve held anything back about other victims, well, your plan for your dear departed brother getting all the blame will be looking a lot less clever," she said.

She rose to leave. Her skin crawled in this man’s presence, and she knew his brief wasn’t going to let him talk. She would let him think it over, and try again.

Lestrade didn’t seem inclined to help. She looked at him inquiringly but he just nodded at the door.

On the way back to the Yard, she saw that he was thinking hard about something.

"Carry on, Donovan," he said as they parked the car. "See him again in a day or so."

"What will you do, sir?"

"I’m going back to the Isle of Man," he said gruffly. "I missed getting everything out of Ramsay, before. Maybe it’s not too late to do it now. But I’ve a feeling our answers are there, not in Pentonville."

"Sir, let me come with you," she said quietly. She didn’t like to think of him going alone. And she didn’t want to be out of the action if something big happened. But Lestrade shook his head.

"Just for a day or two. I need you here, keep on Ramsay, keep on that video evidence. Maybe tech will manage to reconstruct Ramsay’s computer," he said wearily. Jack Ramsay had managed to wipe his laptop clean, as well as Sherlock’s, but the Yard had sophisticated, if time-consuming, countermeasures even for this.

"Yes, sir," she said. She hoped Lestrade didn’t get himself in another scrape. She had heard whispered, unpleasant gossip about Lestrade in the halls of the Yard of late, which was unprecedented.

If he stumbled, he might not be given a chance to get up again this time.

* * *

John took the call from Donovan, grateful that it was not Lestrade.

"John, I know you don't want to make Sherlock talk about...what happened. But something's come up in the Ramsay case. . . I can't talk about it. But if you can get Sherlock to remember anything they said about other places, places that the Ramsays went, or talked about, other than the cellar – and I need to know how he got that cut in his side."

John didn't want to know about it. He wanted to stay in the cottage with Sherlock pretty much forever, to help them both heal, but Sherlock never wanted to talk about his ordeal. "Sally, don’t ask me that, please don’t. You have the tapes, you have Mike Ramsay’s confession, why does Sherlock have to be involved? Isn’t he a victim, too? Doesn’t anybody care what he’s gone through?"

"‘Course, we all do, very much," she said, and John even believed her. "But . . .John, I’m thinking there’s another victim. One that’s not on the tapes. I want to find them all, it’s not right to just close the file, give it over to the Crown. . . I have to do . . . what I can. And Ramsay’s not talking, right?" she said.

John felt his hesitation give rise to respect. Here was something he understood. You didn’t leave anybody behind. Not in battle. And for Sally, this was a battlefield.

"Okay, I’ll ask him. Can it be me?"

"Yes. So long as he’ll repeat it to me, and sign a statement – if I ask him to."

"Of course," he said, adding clumsily, "but it has to be you. . . do you understand?" He had some idea that Sally might know of the breach between him and Lestrade; after all, it was Sally who had come down to The Gunmaker’s with the terrible photos, all those months ago, a lifetime ago. And looked him in the eye and told him she knew Lestrade was in love with him.

"No worries, John: but I need it right away. Can you handle it?"

He could.

Two hours later, though, Sherlock was refusing to admit to a crushing headache, and John had nothing to show for his gentle, hesitant questions but more guilt.

"He says he was always drugged. He doesn’t remember much of anything about anything. They watched movies. You know, the Alfred Hitchcock films on the DVR. And also, the video of the victims. No names, mostly Pete, or Jack, talked about his own wife, or that silent actress - Anny Ondra? But they never spoke of any place, other than 221b. And ‘the station.’ Sherlock reckons they were speaking about trains, or the tube. In London, probably. He doesn’t feel it was Mann they were speaking of."

Donovan thanked him and passed it along to Lestrade, already on the way to Mann.

* * *

Lestrade was quite drunk. He had found a bar near the ferry landing in Douglas that catered to men who worked the port, and despite occasional curious looks, would leave a Londoner with a black overcoat, two fading black eyes and a blacker expression to drink in his corner, in peace.

He had spent the day in fierce stormy weather, fruitlessly chasing down the nonexistent leads regarding the probably nonexistent fifth victim of the Ramsays. Local police were coolly polite, but as unhelpful and vague as it was possible to be; no location on the island seemed to leap to anyone’s tongue at mention of "the station," and there were no young women fitting the description of the other victims, or indeed, any young women at all reported missing on this smug little island.

It was better than being in London, though. He wondered if he could get a transfer to somewhere far away, even farther than Yorkshire – Glasgow? Why not the Hebrides, then? He bitterly recalled the adventure on the Isle of Mull, when he had so boldly, so stupidly, kissed John. Should have stopped right there, quit while I was ahead, he thought even as the memory of it burned. I’m a fool, a bloody fool.

He tapped the table for another whisky as the barmaid passed. She frowned at the barman, who shook his head.

"Sorry, sir, you look all done for, you’ve had enough — why not sleep it off? Have you somewhere to go?" She asked, pitying him despite such spectacles, of one ilk or another, being routinely on offer on the waterfront. Bars like this was where one brought one’s sorrows. She tried to be understanding.

"Go?" He said stupidly. He had had some idea of taking the ferry back to Liverpool, but now the idea of even walking to the door seemed impossible, like a feat of magic. Maybe he would just throw himself in the Irish Sea and be done with it all. For all anyone would care. For all he would care.

He thumped his head on the table’s edge in a vain effort to clear out obsessive visions of John in his arms, just that once. Could anything ever erase it? Did he even want to?

A firm but gentle hand pulled him up by his shoulder till he was sitting somewhat upright.

"Detective Inspector. I’m afraid you won’t be solving the Ramsay case in this . . .establishment," a smooth, plummy voice intoned, expressing a vast distaste for this working class bar. A voice he never would have expected here, of all places.

Mycroft Holmes.

"Can’t solve . . .anything . . ." he slurred unsteadily. Mycroft was looking at him with a peculiar expression that he was too drunk to take as anything but pity, which he could take from the barmaid, but from Mycroft – he decided that he felt like hitting him. Probably. But he needed to hang on to the edge of the table a bit, first.

"No, I don’t imagine you could, in this state," Mycroft said equably, discreetly holding Lestrade up so he wouldn’t slump off the sticky bench.

"What do you want? Did your brother send you to finish me off, then?" Lestrade asked belligerently, staring at Mycroft, sitting there impeccably groomed in a Saville Row suit, Asprey tie and serious expression, as though considering a particularly knotty diplomatic problem that could lead to the outbreak of war on several fronts.

"Hardly. Sherlock and I are not on, shall we say – intimate terms," Mycroft said with every sign of regret, even hurt. This made Lestrade angry. How dare Mycroft Holmes bring his family drama, about Sherlock Holmes of all people, into his nice cozy bender? "No, Detective Inspector, I came to make sure you’re doing your job," he said.

"Fuck off, Mycroft."

"Hmmm. . . . I’ll put that down to the dreadful whisky here. Do you realize that your career at the Yard is hanging by the merest thread? That Detective Inspector Allyn has spent these months feathering his own nest, and getting ready to push you right out of it? Everyone knows about the drinking, it’s no secret. And that debacle here before, I understand what you did, and why you did it, but it’s set you rather back."

Lestrade looked at him with such raw pain that Mycroft had to look away, much as he wanted to do something for the man. Wanted to . . .

"Why does anyone from – what office, exactly, is it you’re with again? MI5? MI6? Care about a detective with Scotland Yard?"

"Lestrade – your star has been on the rise, for a long time. We – I – keep my eye on the Yard for obvious reasons. You have always been destined for better things, much bigger and better things. With this phone hacking scandal – sloppy, a disgrace — there is a lot of room for new blood at the top at the Yard. Don’ t you see? But not like this, Gr — Lestrade."

Lestrade scowled into his empty glass. "Fuck. Can’t you – just – leave a man in peace? I have my own – problems. Let the Yard look after itself, for once. This time, it’s just not in me. I don’t expect you could ever understand. Men like you, and Sherlock, don’t let anything get in the way of the work. Well, I’ve been like that too. Not this time. It’s nobody’s business but mine, though, so please fuck off," Lestrade said brokenly, rubbing his face. He couldn’t believe he was getting the once over from Mycroft Holmes. Of all people.

Mycroft was so quiet he almost forgot he was there. But then he spoke up again, breaking into his recurring reverie of John Watson:

"What if I told you I won’t." Very polite, almost gentle. His voice was rather soothing if you didn’t listen to the message.

He forgot what this was about, now. "Won’t what, damn you?"

"Fuck. Off," Mycroft enunciated precisely, looking at him penetratingly with those clever, clever eyes that were so different than his brother’s, so perceptive, but somehow also – melancholy?

That was all right. Lestrade was in the mood for melancholy.

"Will you at least have a drink with me?" He ventured.

"Not here," Mycroft said. "I think you’ve quite exhausted the possibilities of this particular venue. And if you insist on drinking, which I very much wish you wouldn’t, we need to get you some food first, then a better class of spirits, I should think," Mycroft said with what sounded like wistfulness mixed with disapproval. Damn the man, what was it to him what he drank, where he drank?

He was about to ask him just that, standing up to make his point, looking up into Mycroft’s face surprised again by how tall the infuriating man actually was.

And swayed a little before he fell face first into Mycroft’s arms.

To be continued . . .


	13. An Exception Worth Making.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Thirteen. An Exception Worth Making.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 9,600  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

I'm the living result  
Of a man who's been hurt a little too much  
And I've tasted  
The bitterness of my own tears  
Sadness is all my lonely heart can feel  
I can't stand up  
For fallin' down.  
Simple though love is,  
still it confused me  
Why I'm not loved the way I should be  
Now I've lived with heartaches  
and I've roomed with fear  
I've dealt with despair  
And I've wrestled with tears.  
I can't stand up for fallin' down.

Lyrics to I Can't Stand Up (For Fallin' Down), all rights reserved Homer Banks and Allen Jones

 

Sherlock had vaguely promised Lady Holmes to lend a hand with management of the Riddleston Hall estate. But that was before. Now that John was here, and they were both comfortably established in the little stone cottage, he was not inclined to be disturbed.

Finally, the redoubtable McLeod resorted to threats: "Mister Sherlock. If you’ll not be coming to meet with Roger Thorpe about Wrackrent Farm, like you promised your dear mother, I’ll — I’ll — I’ll not bring you any more meals down to Smith’s Cottage. Nor will Cook, either, so don’ t try and get around me, young man."

Sherlock considered. He himself had been eating practically for two after his long confinement in the evil cellar, and John wasn’t stinting himself, either. He wandered to the refrigerator and saw that their provisions were sadly depleted. It was either secure replenishments from the aptly named Mrs. Blessing, cook of Riddleston Hall – or venture into the village. That was most definitely not an agreeable prospect. Sherlock was a notorious figure now, with the Ramsay trial still dominating the news. The villagers were burning with curiosity and, overcoming their customary Northern reticence, would bombard him with unwelcome questions on the rare occasions he had ventured off the estate.

He thought he heard John’s voice, sounding quite firm, in the background.

"And Captain Watson says he won’t come back down to the cottage, either, until you agree to meet with Mr. Thorpe."

Sherlock heaved a tragic sigh. That settled things.

Because now that he had John back, he didn’t really care to have him out of his sight. He didn’t care to examine why that might be, either. It just was a fact that he was aware of; a necessity, even.

As were the sumptuous meals provided by Mrs. Blessing. He hauled himself off of the sagging sofa to retrieve an umbrella from the stand by the door, and made his way out through the constant drizzle to Riddleston Hall.

* * *

Lestrade made no objection – no coherent objection, it should be said – when Mycroft politely assisted him into his armoured Bentley. He did eventually notice that neither Anthea, nor his usual driver, were in the car, and it became known to him that Mycroft was driving, apparently alone. His eyes were fundamentally closed during most of the drive, but when a hand had lightly brushed his knee he had cautiously opened one eye to see Mycroft’s hand pulling at a briefcase on the floor.

He closed his eyes again. It was better that way.

Before very long, the car stopped. They sat silently in the car for a moment. Rain was pattering the windshield.

"Can you walk, do you think," Mycroft asked. Lestrade had to give him credit for the non-judgmental tone of his voice.

"Depends." He said honestly.

"From here to that elevator," he pointed through the warm yellow light of the glass doors of a posh hotel, revealing what looked to be a small plush lobby and an elevator. It wasn’t far. He nodded and refused any help out of the car. Mycroft guided him by the elbow anyway, and nodded briskly at the respectful greetings by the obsequious uniformed staff: "Good evening, Mr. Holmes."

Now they were in the tiny elevator, and Lestrade was mindful that he probably reeked of whisky. The elevator was doing bad things to the state of his stomach. He felt Mycroft’s gaze on him, that damnable, appraising gaze. He refused to meet it. He was more concerned with not falling again.

Now they were walking down a silent, narrow corridor that ended in a pair of polished double doors with enormous brass handles. The carpet in the hall was very thick and soft, and their feet made no sound at all. There were tasteful oil paintings in gilt frames, mostly seascapes, ships, hanging on the walls. Mycroft opened the doors and pulled Lestrade inside gently when he hesitated.

Now they were in a sumptuous suite, looking to Lestrade’s gimlet eye to be fit for the Queen herself. But now things were getting fuzzy again; the effort of walking nearly upright, all the way here had taken the last of whatever strength and coordination he still possessed, and he started to sway again. This time Mycroft was prepared.

"No, not on the floor. Completely unnecessary, er – Detective Inspector. Just a few more steps and you may lie down as long as you like. Well, what I meant to say was, until you feel better," Mycroft seemed embarrassed by his pathetic condition. Lestrade didn’t blame him. He was realizing that it was, or rather, he was, in fact, a total embarrassment.

Mycroft now opened the door to the separate bedroom of this vast suite, and propelled him toward the bed until he sat, then fell back with a dizzy feeling as though he would keep falling forever. He didn’t even feel his head hit the pillows. He was a wreck, and he knew it.

And he knew why.

Mycroft’s eyes were still on him, and now he felt vulnerable somehow, which made him angry again. And so, he decided he had better to go on the offensive at this point in these strange proceedings:

"Well, what are you looking at, anyway? Mycroft Holmes. . .You’re just like your brother, – just like Sherlock, then — aren’t you? Both of you lot have always gotten everything, every bloody thing you’ve ever wanted in your life. Haven’t you? Well, it’s not like that for normal people," he lashed out, not even comprehending how or why these particular words were being strung together, issuing from his mouth.

He closed his eyes now and so could not see Mycroft’s expression. But he heard his voice, deep, proper,

"Ah . . . I assure you that you’re quite wrong, Detective Inspector. . . .I –" There was a silence, and with the last of his troubled consciousness he heard Mycroft seem, strangely, to struggle for words. "I haven’t . . .I’m nothing like Sherlock," Lestrade thought he heard him say quietly, and then the door was closing and everything went dark.

On the other side of the closed door, Mycroft went to the desk and picked up the telephone.

"Good evening, Henry. No, the suite is quite suitable. But I need another. No, I’m not changing rooms. I need a second room. Next floor down, perhaps, would be . . . best. That’s quite all right. In ten minutes, then. And don’t knock on the door. I’ll leave it open. And could you send up some soup? And a pot of tea. Oolong. That is all."

He scribbled a note for Lestrade and fixed it to the door where he was certain to see it, then left the suite without permitting himself any further glances at the closed bedroom door.

* * *

As Sherlock entered Riddlestson Hall, he saw a battered estate car leaving. He went straight to the kitchen. As he had suspected, John was here with Mrs. Blessing, enjoying the last of some tea and cake.

"Who was that?" He asked.

"Doctor Foster, don’t you remember?" When John had suffered from amnesia, he had had an alarming collapse when his memories returned, and old Doctor Foster, the Holmes’ family doctor and a true country practitioner, had briefly tended him.

"Are you all right?" Sherlock looked terrified that John was ill again. John put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Of course, more than all right. But don’t you remember what we talked about?" He said meaningfully. Sherlock did remember. John didn’t think they should go back to 221b, after what had happened. Didn’t think they should go back to London at all. John’s plan was that Sherlock should take over management of the Riddleston estate, and that he himself would take over the practice of Dr. Foster, who was quite ready to retire and was very impressed with John’s medical and surgical experience.

"Hmmmm. . . ." Sherlock said noncommitally. He didn’t want to think about the future, or the past. Especially the past. Mrs. Blessing was frowning at him, though.

"Mister Sherlock, surely you know that Mr. Thorpe has been waiting in the library all this time? I’ve sent up some tea, but he’s needing to speak with you."

"I know," Sherlock said. "Come with me, John," he demanded. And although John was very content in the warm, vast Victorian kitchen, filled with delicious smells of tonight’s dinner, he went with Sherlock. If Sherlock wanted him anywhere at all, he was there.

Roger Thorpe was a farmer who raised sheep on leased lands that were part of the vast Riddleston estate lands. And evidently, the well that served his farm had failed. A very organized packet of paperwork pertaining to the plans for drilling a new well had been submitted for Lady Holmes’ approval, and had fallen to Sherlock to review and approve both the plans and the expenditure, and to get alternative bids if he deemed it prudent.

Thorpe began a dissertation on the new well, the advisability of drilling in a different location than the engineers had identified. He had a worn map spread out across the table, and was pointing at a particular spot. "That’s the place, sir, these city engineers don’t know the land like I do," Thorpe said heatedly. "No offense, sir. I know you’ve been in London all these years. It’s very good to see you help your dear mother."

Sherlock gave no sign of attending to any thing the poor man was saying. Instead, he was looking at the blueprints for the drilling equipment. "How deep do you suppose they can drill," Sherlock asked abstractedly.

"I couldn’t say, sir. As deep as they need, I was told," Thorpe said.

"How many?"

"Sir?"

"Sheep, Thorpe – how many sheep on your farm?"

"Oh, a hundred head. They’re Swaledale, best wool anywhere."

"Can you have more?"

"More, sir?"

"More sheep, Thorpe. With this new well."

"I hadn’t thought on that, particularly. I’m not wanting, sir, to get more that what I have, you see: just aiming to take good care of what I’ve got."

"Hmmmm. . . .do you hear that, John? What do you think?"

John thought that he didn’t want anything more than what he had. And he aimed to take good care of it. "I think you need to get these engineers out to build this well for this man’s fine sheep."

"I meant, what do you think of this well? The drawings? I’m not sure this here will even work," Sherlock was obsessing over the blueprints, apparently analyzing whether the engineers’s designs were sound. He had forgotten about the sheep.

Thorpe gazed expectantly from John to Sherlock, and back again. John elbowed Sherlock.

"Oh, Thorpe, you’re still here. Yes, of course, we’ll send the company around to start the drilling."

"As soon as may be, sir. The rain’s deceiving, you know. Once the sun comes again, the drought is something terrible in Yorkshire. We want to be ready."

Sherlock agreed, and shook hands. Thorpe left well pleased, and promised to send over a samples of his wife’s knitting, from their own wool.

Sherlock was still staring at the blueprints for the well after Thorpe left. John was accustomed to Sherlock’s random fascinations, which he might pick up anywhere, magpie-like. John quietly sat in one of the battered leather armchairs, content that they were together, here, in this peaceful place. He could imagine it; he would take up a country medical practice. Sherlock would manage the estate, possibly spend more time with the horses. It was surprising, but encouraging, to see him take an interest in something so mundane as the drilling of a well for one of the farmers. Possibly the country life might just suit Sherlock after all. After all they had been through. After all Sherlock had suffered.

"John."

"Yes?"

"John. Look at this, won’t you." Sherlock was studying the blueprints, but John was studying Sherlock’s face. Suddenly he didn’t like his color. He was looking pale.

"What is it? Sherlock? Come away, then, you’ve done your bit – you don’t need to spend all day over the well."

Sherlock was pointing at the drawing. There was some sort of metal scaffolding that held the drilling equipment, apparently. It looked tall. There was a drawing of how the drill would penetrate the rock below to find fresh water.

"What does that look like to you?" Sherlock asked.

"I — I don’t know, exactly. I’ve never seen a well drilled before," he said.

"Doesn’t it put you in mind of — a tower — a radio tower?"

John shrugged. "I suppose. It could."

"A radio tower . . . a radio station. A station. Don’t you see?" Sherlock’s face was white, but his eyes glittered with excitement. John didn’t like to see him agitated like this. What he needed was rest. He didn’t understand how this quiet little farm transaction had somehow turned into something dark, something wrong.

"John, remember — what Sally was asking — and I told her, don’t you remember, I said they – the Ramsays – they kept talking about ‘the station,’ I thought the tube station, or maybe the train. But what if it was . . . a radio station?"

John kept his face as impassive as he could. This made no sense. What could a radio station have to do with the gruesome murders? Were Sherlock’s powers of deduction diminished from his long ordeal?

"When I was a boy, I used to sometimes go out on Oxenhope Moor," Sherlock said, his voice coming faster now. John just let it come. "Oxenhope Moor: you remember, John. There was an old radio station there, on a hill. It was abandoned, even then. It’s still there, I think. . . Mycroft and I went there – once," he said remotely, obviously remembering something unpleasant. But he said nothing more. He stood up abruptly and started to leave.

"Where are you going, Sherlock?"

"You mean, where are we going. Somewhere I should have thought to go, long before now. I want to meet the fortunate ex-Mrs. Ramsay. Jack’s ex-wife. She and I have something in common, you know. We both . . . escaped."

John knew better than to argue. Sherlock, when on the trail of the thread of a clue, was not to be dissuaded by anything at all.

* * *

Lestrade awoke to insistent tapping. He was in a very dark place. He had no idea where. He couldn’t see a thing. He felt around and realized he was in a bed. A very plush bed with even better sheets than his own. And he was very choosy about his sheets. He fumbled for where he imagined there must be a nightstand, and found the light.

He was in a luxurious hotel room decorated with what he thought of as vaguely Frenchified furniture. His own taste went to modern chrome, glass and leather. But he could see that this place was exclusive, expensive, and very private. He opened the door and saw a uniformed man with a wheeled cart.

"Your breakfast, sir." He gestured to a table next to a pair of french doors in the vast sitting room of this suite, looking out over grey skies and the vague suggestion of churning ocean below. It was true, breakfast was laid out for him.

This was most unexpected.

"How?" He managed, his throat dry and sore. He felt like he had swallowed nails. His head was splitting.

"Mr. Holmes’ orders, sir. When you’re done, he asks if you would please ring Room 25."

Lestrade nodded, and patted his crumpled coat awkwardly, intending to give the man some money, but with grave dignity he said, "It’s taken care of, sir. Is there anything else?"

Lestrade said no, and then he was alone again.

Alone. Would he ever be anything else?

He sat and forced himself to eat. It was not easy, but the food was delicious and he did feel better afterwards. He took a quick shower, deliberately not prolonging it which could only lead to thoughts that needed to be avoided forever, now; and the cold water made him feel quite a bit better until his thoughts turned, regardless, to his heartache. He firmly refused to indulge it today, though. It was either sink to the bottom, or climb back up to the top. He looked at himself in the mirror. He had looked worse, was the best he could say.

His mobile rang. It was Donovan.

"Sir, they’ve managed to piece together some of the data from that laptop – you know, the laptop from the Ramsay murders?"

"Well, what is it? Anything about our fifth victim?" His tone did not mock her, despite his feeling that the trip to Mann had been a waste of time. Except . . . that despite his hangover, he felt better today than he had for a long time. That was worth something.

"No, sir, nothing like that. It’s all numbers, sir. I’ll send it along. Shall I send it over to the police station in Mann?"

"No, don’t do that . . ." he pulled out the hotel brochure and gave her the fax number.

Next he called Mycroft, who answered immediately. "I don’t know what to say," he said, because he didn’t. " Thank you, of course."

"I shouldn’t mention it," Mycroft said formally. "Are you going back into Douglas today, or do you return to London?"

"Ahhh . . .I’m getting something from Sergeant Donovan just now . . .I’ll decide after I look at it."

"Very well. Good luck, then, Detective Inspector."

"Thanks." He rang off.

* * *

Sheila Malone, formerly Sheila Ramsay, was living in Eccleston, near Liverpool. Her husband, Perry "Stone" Malone, was the boss of the Selmore Street Mob, a notorious drugs ring with ties to the Russian mafia. When she learned that they wanted to see Shiela in person, Sargeant Donovan strongly advised against it.

"Don’t be silly, Sally," Sherlock said. "Sheila and I will be the best of friends. After all, I rid her of Jack. She probably is still celebrating."

John frowned. He hated any reference to the nightmarish events of Sherlock’s kidnapping and the death of Jack Ramsay, and hated to hear Sherlock speak of it, especially in black humour. He would never forget Sherlock standing in 221b, clutching the bloody knife, pressing it to his own broken heart.

Sheila Malone lived in a modern stucco-and-glass compound behind high, fortress-like walls in a quiet semi-rural district in St Helens, on the fringes of Liverpool. It was a neighborhood that oozed with the ostentatious respectability of the nouveau riche. Entering through the gates, they were surprised by the extensive, well-tended grounds, comprised of paddock, a barn, and gardens. The door to the house was opened by a young, muscular man with a leather jacket, blinding white trainers, shaved head, facial tattoos and studs, and a permanent sneer. He openly carried a gun thrust in his waistband.

"Holmes, izzit? And Watson? Right. Missus's having her swim, like. Yer 't have a bit of chat. Mr Malone sez you can have ten minutes." Here he cracked the bones in his neck by violently wrenching his skull to the side, and stared dully, possibly meaning to indicate that their time was ticking.

They followed him through rooms filled with light, glass, modern art. Everything looked new, chosen by a professional decorator. You could almost smell the fresh paint. They arrived at a glassed-in conservatory room containing a narrow lap pool. A woman in a white swimsuit was doing laps, mechanically. Their companion waited respectfully, not even leering at her trim form as it churned through the aquamarine water. Finally she stopped, reaching her hand up to grasp the towel she knew would be proffered her. Their companion held it out and she emerged dripping from the water, briskly toweling off. She was short, even tiny, with blonde hair bobbed chin-length and wide blue eyes that looked hurt, hunted, despite her formidable swimmer’s physique and tanning-bed glow. She shrugged on a thick robe that was lying on a chaise lounge.

"I’d like to kiss you, I really would," she said directly to Sherlock, with a broad Ecclestonian accent. Their leather-coated companion frowned at this, and she said carelessly, "Fuck off, won’t you, Martin, there’s a lad," and he stepped back just a few feet, not taking his eyes from them. "I know who you are. Jack would show us your picture, one he got from the newspaper, every time you solved a murder. He worshiped you."

Sherlock’s eyes grew hard and opaque, like a clouded mirror. "Possibly you could express your gratitude by helping me. We have some questions. But first – what do you mean, ‘us?’"

"Me and his brother, of course. Mike. We had our own place, but we used to have regular Sunday dinners together, every week, at their Mum’s house. Well, Mike’s house now Mum’s gone. You know she died a few years back . . .Jack got much stranger, after she went. Anyway, every Sunday, watching those damn films, over and over, I was so bored out of my mind I wanted to scream."

Sherlock grimaced.

"I told Jack, we had to get Mike onto something more . . . wholesome, like, something to make a chap laugh, but there was nothing for it." She seemed lost in unpleasant memories. "Look, I don’t really understand why you’re here."

"The police advise we can’t tell you anything about . . .well, why we want to know certain things. But you understand Mr. Holmes sometimes assists Scotland Yard?" John asked modestly. "And that we care, very much, about Mike Ramsay’s trial? So we would appreciate it very much if you could give us certain information. Do you know anything about a ‘station?’ relating to the Ramsay brothers? They both mentioned it, sometimes, apparently, while Mr. Holmes was . . . being held. At Mike Ramsay’s house."

"Station? You mean, like the train? The tube?" She looked confused. Martin was giving significant looks at the large clock on the wall. "Time up," he said.

"Shut up, Martin, bloody hell, do you know this man, this Mr. Holmes, probably saved my life? I owe him a hell of a lot, he killed Jack with his bare hands, practically." She gave a satisfied smile, clearly imagining it. Sherlock looked to be in pain and John wanted to get him out of here. Any moment now, the woman was going to ask for a re-enactment.

"Nay, Missus, Mr. Malone would never let anybody lay a finger on you. It was all just mad blather, yer old man. Right off his nut, he was. You’re always safe here, Mr. Malone sees to that."

She sighed. One had the distinct impression that whatever prison her marriage to Jack Ramsay must have been, she had exchanged one sort of cage for another.

"Unless you mean the old radio station," she said, remembering. "Their granddad had some sort of ham radio station, during the war. It was a bomb shelter, too. Jack and Mike used to talk about the games they played there as kiddies. It was probably very nasty games. I didn’t want to know about it."

Sherlock and John exchanged glances, Sherlock intense, John amazed that it had fallen out as Sherlock had predicted. Again. "Where is it?" Sherlock asked urgently.

"Don’t know a thing about it, do I? Somewhere in Liverpool. The family weren’t all from the Isle of Man, you know. . . Their granddad was Liverpudlian, through and through. It was him had the station, I think. Wait – I do remember one thing. Jack said they cried during the Toxteth riots, because they couldn’t play there no more."

Martin was looking anxiously at the clock and they said their goodbyes. As they were leaving, Sherlock stopped. "The films . . . you said you wanted to get Mike onto something more wholesome . . .surely you mean Jack?"

"Jack, too, of course . . .but when we went to Mike’s house, he always got to choose the film and it was always one of those same ones, over and over. Hitchcock. Mostly Mike wanted to watch ‘Marnie.’ I hated that one, so cruel and sad. But that was Mike’s very favorite, the one we watched over and over again."

"Mike? You’re certain?"

"How could I forget? I had enough of it at home with Jack, but at least there, he could go down to his own room and leave me in peace. At Mike’s house, we had to be polite, watch all together."

"Which . . .other films? Do you remember?"

"Do I remember? Always one of the same lot, like I said. Not even the best ones . . .I would have loved to watch ‘Rebecca,’ or ‘To Catch a Thief,’ I could watch those forever. No, let me see . . . If it wasn’t ‘Marnie,’ it was ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much," the original one, the one with that funny actor Peter Lorre – did you know Hitchcock made that one twice?. . .and ‘The 39 Steps,’ I was actually glad when it was that one, that one is rather fun . . .They’ve made it into a show on the West End. Funny. And ‘Family Plot,’ the last one the old man ever made, they said."

Now Martin was propelling them out the door. "Mr. Malone said ten minutes. You’re over your time," he said, less politely now, and looking almost threateningly at Sheila. She shrugged.

"You see how it is. Thanks for coming to see me, lads. It does my heart a deal of good to know you’re alive and well, and Jack’s in his grave, where he belongs." She spat into the pool.

* * *

The fax from Scotland Yard was puzzling.

It was a series of long numbers, in columns; what might be dates; and words that were possibly a code. Lestrade could make nothing of it. It had no clear connection to the murders, there were far too many numbers for it to be connected with the four murders that they knew of. He realized his head was still a bit sluggish, but even at his sharpest he didn’t think he could make anything of this.

Before he could stop himself, he briefly wished he could show this list to Sherlock Holmes. Give that brilliant brain something to chew on. Often enough, he had broken through impossible cases. But the last person he could go to for help now was Sherlock Holmes.

His brain drifted in a new direction. That Mycroft Holmes . . . so much more secretive than Sherlock, not such a bloody show-off – Sherlock was a positive exhibitionist when it came to solving crime, if you wanted to tell the truth; but if one was paying attention, one might see that Mycroft was every bit as brilliant. Even more so, maybe.

What was the saying, his mother used to say?

Still waters run deep.

He picked up the telephone again.

Within a few minutes he had managed to scan the fax and send it to Mycroft’s mobile. Lestrade got the impression Mycroft was absorbing the columns of numbers and driving the Bentley at the same time and was surprised when he realized that made him nervous.

"It’s to do with money laundering."

"Money laundering?"

"Indeed. You say Mike Ramsay had it? On his laptop? Well, well. This makes things take on a different complexion altogether. Our Mike Ramsay, future Chief Constable for the Isle of Man, formerly on assignment to Vice with the Met . . .and he’s been pitching for the other team. Mann is an international tax haven, a positive cornucopia of private banks hosting offshore numbered accounts. As such it’s a den of international money laundering, but it’s been tougher to crack even than Switzerland, mostly for political reasons. . ."

"But, what does it mean, exactly?"

"I need to analyze it, but I assume your men at the Yard could do as well. Unless you’re afraid DI Allyn will take this over to polish his own star –"

　

"Right now, this is between Sally Donovan and me. . . I want to keep it that way," was all Lestrade would say. "But I need to know what all these numbers mean. Are they contacts? Amounts? Account numbers?"

"Say no more. May I ring you back in — thirty minutes?"

Lestrade was actually almost . . . grateful, but would never admit it. Anyway, what he knew of both Holmes brothers was that whatever they did, was always strongly, if not exclusively, self-interested.

He started on the document himself, to see if his brain might miraculously cooperate and crack the mysterious code. Nothing seemed to work. But it felt good to force his brain into difficult problem solving, he needed to get sharp. He was determined to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

　

And was amazed when one column was a childishly simple alphanumeric code yielding street names, and another in the same code yielded women’s names:

Katya.

Natasha.

Olga.

Sasha.

Tatiana.

Nadia.

Vera.

His heart started pounding as he realized there were two, maybe three explanations for this list. The women were murder victims; for some reason all Russian-sounding names.

Or, they were women who had were paying in the black market for false identification and working papers. This led to the third explanation.

Given what he knew about the Russian and other Eastern European gangs, the women were being held as drug-addicted sex slaves. For as long as they were any physical use.

He dashed downstairs to the hotel’s business center and asked for a map. None of the street names were in Douglas or anywhere on the Isle of Man. Frustrated, he wondered if he had been wrong. But the code worked perfectly, yielding names that made sense. He asked for a map of Liverpool and Merseyside. Here, he had better luck. One of the street names was in Liverpool; the others, in Manchester and Leeds.

The hotel clerk behind the counter was surreptitiously observing Lestrade’s marks on the map.

"Sir, you’re not thinking of going – there — for any reason?" He pointed at the Liverpool address.

"Why?" Lestrade asked.

"That’s Toxteth. You know, the riots. They planted a few trees, after, but what I hear on the news, it’s overrun with gangs." The Toxteth Riots of 1981 had almost brought down the government; just weeks after the notorious Brixton riots, the Toxteth Riots were the result of the highest unemployment rate in the entire country, seething racial tensions and inequities, youth run mad, burning, looting, rampaging. The photographs of Toxteth burning had shocked the entire world. Toxteth remained, for all of the efforts and cosmetic improvement, a very dangerous place.

Lestrade smiled. "No worries, just a bit of sightseeing." He considered briefly whether to put Sally Donovan in the picture, then decided as he was just going to do a bit of reconaissance, so to speak, he would make sure that he wasn’t wildly off course before making anything official of his suspicions. And he didn’t want DI Allyn to somehow get wind of things, if something did come of them.

* * *

The local constabulary had been ordered to cooperate with Detective Inspector Lestrade and so, upon his urgent request, a constable from the Douglas station dropped an unmarked police car off at the hotel for Lestrade’s use. He felt for his gun, wondering if he had enough spare clips. Thank God they had given him back his gun. And that he had had the foresight to bring extra ammunition.

On ferry back to Liverpool, he could not help recalling John stealing the motorcycle, and speeding away from him. He could see it very clearly. That had been the last time he had ever really touched him, on the shoulder, on this very boat, the memory of which made his heart contract painfully. But it had taken nothing at all for John to literally flee him to try and save Sherlock Holmes. This made him think about Sherlock, too, finally; what the man had been through, of course; but also, what he had tried his hardest to take from him. He realized, now, that he had tried to break something that was unbreakable; what he needed to do now was just to let it go. Forget. No more drinking, though, he admonished himself. And maybe, just maybe, he would repair the damage that he had done; to John; to Sherlock; to his former friendship with both men; and possibly most of all, to himself. He intended to try.

He watched the grey water churning by, and the ugly skyline of Liverpool docks approaching.

His mobile rang. It was Mycroft. The exceptionally reserved man revealed no excitement as he informed Lestrade that some of the columns showed vast millions of pounds cash being laundered, the institutions, the account numbers, and the contact names in the worlds of shady finance and drugs, names well known to Mycroft. An alias of James Moriarty even figured here, although he was by no means the largest offender. The other columns had been child’s play, he added, "something to do with prostitution, seemingly, nothing terribly important."

Lestrade frowned. Despite his sangfroid, Mycroft clearly was pleased with the money laundering evidence. Right up his street, Lestrade imagined. The poor women appeared to interest him not at all. Like his brother, he thought. Simple prostitutes; not a fascinating murder, not an internationally important drugs and money laundering ring – nothing to test their superior brain cells in that.

"Thanks, Mycroft. But I happen to disagree with you," he said mildly, and hung up.

Having seen what Jack Ramsay had gotten up to with his victims, he did not want to imagine what his brother Mike might be capable of, with apparent access to and power over helpless foreign women at the mercy of the Liverpool drug lords.

He would just have a little look at this first address.

* * *

Mycroft frowned at his mobile. He had detected a hint of disapproval, or worse . . . disappointment in Detective Inspector Lestrade’s voice.

That, he realized, was distressing.

He mentally examined the boundaries, the shape of the distress. After a few moments, he reached down and pulled out the aluminum case from under the front seat. The one where he kept a handgun and a semiautomatic machine gun. After satisfying himself that everything was as it should be, he smoothly and at top speed, spun the Bentley around and hurtled back toward Liverpool.

He hated fieldwork.

But sometimes, exceptions were worth making.

* * *

John grabbed Sherlock’s arm, hard, as they went back to their hired car.

"We aren’t going there, Sherlock. You are done with the Ramsay case. I mean it," he said very sternly.

Sherlock looked at him defiantly. "Who has more right than I?"

"It’s not a question of whether you’ve the right. I’ll give you that. More than any other case, maybe, this one should be all yours. But you can’t."

"Can’t?"

"That’s right," John said evenly, squeezing his arm even tighter. "Because I’m not letting you. Is that clear?"

Here Sherlock saw a face that very few ever saw, and he supposed most of those persons were now dead in Afghanistan . . . and other places. An implacable, determined face.

Sherlock sighed. "I suppose you want me to call the Yard," he said, giving up. He knew John was right. "Please don’t ask me to call . . .Lestrade," he said sulkily.

"No, of course. I mean to call Sergeant Donovan," he said, picking up his mobile. When Sally answered, he told her about the radio station in Liverpool, belonging to the Ramsay brothers’ grandfather. "I don’t know where it is, exactly, but Jack’s ex-wife says it was in Toxteth. South Liverpool. It was burned out in the Toxteth Riots. If that helps," he said.

"Thanks, John. I can work with this, I shouldn’t think it would be too hard to track down. There’s reams of records on the war civilian commuications system, if you know where to look . . .mostly in old files, but leave that to me. Tell Sherlock I do . . . appreciate it. And John – "

There was a silence and John wondered if Sally was going to say something about Lestrade.

"Please stay out of it, now. Tell Sherlock he’s more than done enough. Let us handle it here on out."

"Great minds think alike, Sally. It’s all right. We’re going back to Yorkshire now, I think. Be seeing you."

"Champion. I owe you a pint down the Gunmaker’s," she said. She felt the case starting to break open again for her, now she had a solid lead to move forward with. And as it turned out, the answer was quite easy to find.

In old newspaper articles that had been digitized regarding the Toxteth riots, she found an interview with the Ramsay’s grandfather, Gerry Ramsay, bemoaning the lawless, worthless youths that had torched his old ham radio station, which had been a communications center in World War II.

"Young men knew how to do their duty, in those days," Gerry Ramsay said plaintively. There was a photograph of the smoking concrete block structure behind him. "The young men today, their nothing better than animals. Animals, I say."

The fine print identified that the burned-out old radio station was in the Crescent Road, Toxteth, in south Liverpool.

She reached for her mobile to call Lestrade.

* * *

Lestrade spent some time just driving through Toxteth before circling to his ultimate destination. Graffitti-marred, a classic inner city slum, hard-eyed slacker youths and sharp-eyed drug runners on the make hung in shadows, on street corners; the occasional weary old pensioner pushing a shopping cart on the way to or from dismal council flats. Black and silver Mercedes with blacked-out windows prowled the streets, slow and low to the ground. Everywhere he felt himself watched. He kept one hand on his gun, which lay across his lap. One couldn’t be too careful.

He found Crescent Street to be very quiet, more devastated even than the other streets, most of the buildings here clearly having been bombed out in the riots all those years ago, and nobody finding it at all worthwhile to restore it. It looked like he imagined a street in Baghdad might.

There was no one about; no cars, no junior gang members on the lookout. Maybe this was just another fruitless chase after a non-existent lead. But he was a detective, and knew that most leads came to nothing, until the one that did. And you never knew which it might be. Someone had reminded him of that, recently. He recalled the obstreperous DCI Charlie Weller of the West Yorkshire police, and had to smile briefly. He knew Weller would not hesitate to chase this slender lead down, probably barreling right into the old radio station with a stentorian shout.

Lestrade checked his gun. He figured if anyone was watching, they would expect him to have a gun. So far as he had seen, everyone on these streets had a gun. It was de rigeur. For good measure, he took a tire iron from under the front seat and clasped it in his hand, concealed up the sleeve of his coat.

The station was a very old structure of huge concrete blocks, with a broken antenna flying the tattered remains of a black pirate flag, someone’s idea of a joke, maybe. Under vast quantities of graffiti you could still see the remains of soot from the riots. There were broken bottles, broken glass, and used condoms littered about. He looked around cautiously. All was quiet and he saw nothing and no one. He walked through empty low-ceilinged rooms, stinking of urine and worse.

And came to a stairwell that led down, a smell unbearable. He shone his flashlight down below and saw a new-ish looking steel door, with a stout padlock on a chain.

Now he wished he had some backup. This was an indefensible position unless he could get on the other side of that door without attracting attention, and then of course there was the question of getting back out – if someone didn’t want to let him.

His foot slipped on a wet stair and knocked an empty bottle down the stair, bumping and rattling loudly until it broke into pieces against the steel door.

It was then that he heard the cries. Women’s voices, muffled, panicked, crying, scraping against the door. With a rush he ran down the foul staircase and pushed the tire iron through the chain, twisting until it burst. He pushed open the steel door to reveal a dark cellar, dimly lit with a colored lightbulb, haunted faces of pale women, eyes sunken and shadowed, purple bruises. Crying in Russian, which he didn’t understand. But before he could even start to sort out what was happening, make himself understood, there was the unmistakable sound of gunfire. And one of the girls, taller than the others, shouted loudly, "Boris!"

"Shut up!" He waved his hands to indicate that they should be quiet, but the tall girl commenced a stream of shouting in Russian. The other girls jumped on her, slapping her and forcing her to be quiet. But it was too late. There was a figure outlined at the top of the stair, shooting down now into the cellar. He couldn’t reach the steel door to close it. He fired back. The girls were all screaming and crying, some even dragging on his arm. But one of his bullets was true, and the man tumbled screaming down the stairs, bleeding from his chest. Lestrade took his gun and pulled him out of the light.

He pulled out his mobile and tried to call for backup to the Liverpool Police, but could get no signal. The walls must be very thick down here.

There was a burst of machine gun fire and now he knew he was really in for it. He started to push the steel door closed. But then he heard a familiar voice. "Lestrade," came the urgent whisper. To his complete amazement, it was Mycroft Holmes, stepping backward down the stair, brandishing a submachine gun, giving a quick burst before he achieved the cellar.

"There are at least a dozen of them up there, now," Mycroft said. "I called for backup but they said your resourceful Donovan already called it in."

Lestrade was speechless. Mycroft looked as though he had just stepped out of a meeting with the Prime Minister, collected, not a hair out of place, his shirt and tie still crisp.

"Get back," Lestrade ordered. "I need to barricade this door." Mycroft politely stepped aside and let Lestrade shut the steel door, jamming the metal frames of the women’s beds, cots, really, against it. It didn’t look like it would hold, and there was nothing else. There was a small refrigerator, a microwave, a single folding card table stacked with a few dirty dishes and empty vodka bottles, and tattered curtains hanging from the ceiling to permit the women to service their clients with the appearance of privacy.

Lestrade made some effort to comfort the hysterical women with gestures, herding them toward the farthest corner, pushing one of the beds on its side there to give them some limited protection. To his further astonishment, Mycroft said a few words in gutteral Russian, which caused the women to fall silent and huddle together behind the bed, stifling their weeping.

Now there was a beating on the door and shouting by male Russian voices. The door was starting to crack open. The bedframes were not going to hold.

"Mycroft, get behind me, protect the women," Lestrade said, standing bravely in the line of fire, deliberately in front of Mycroft and the women as the door burst open, and he blasted away with his gun at the men coming down, and then Mycroft was at his side after all, blasting too. The men retreated back up the stair, shouting at each other. And then there was the welcome sound of sirens and a helicopter, and more guns firing. After just a few moments, a Liverpool policeman in swat gear appeared at the top of the stair.

"Is that Mr. Holmes? And Detective Inspector Lestrade?" He called down. "Everything’s secure."

It was over.

* * *

Many hours later, all reports having been made, and the women taken into protective custody, and in some cases to hospital, Mycroft and Lestrade returned to the hotel in Douglas. They could have returned to London, of course, but a feeling vibrating between them made them both agree, with the fewest of words, to return to that quiet, safe and very private place. Inside the hotel, the elevator was tiny and lined with mahogany paneling and mirrors. They were forced to stand very close together. Lestrade leaned back against the wall, feeling the shock now. The elevator stopped. Mycroft was very close to him. He hadn't really noticed the color of his eyes, before. Had he? A dark stormy blue, changeable. . . Mycroft reached up and brushed the side of his face.

"You have a...mark," he said. Lestrade looked in the mirror to see Mycroft's thumb brushing away a dark smudge, from the bomb shelter, no doubt. Then his thumb slid to Lestrade's mouth, where he softly but deliberately traced his lips. Lestrade held his breath.

"What are you doing?"

"Confirming."

Everything was very hot. He decided to cut right to the chase. He pulled Mycroft's hand away and put it right on his cock, already hard like iron, just like that. . . which he hadn't really expected. Or maybe he had. Mycroft wasn't taking, though. His hand just on him, taking nothing, giving nothing. In his face Lestrade thought he saw desire, maybe something else, too; but he wasn't giving it away. Then he removed his hand, which infuriated Lestrade, feeling his cock just jump. It wanted more. He wanted more. Amazing. Mycroft leaned away, just watching him, coolly.

"Fuck you," Lestrade said. Play games with him, would he?

Mycroft gave a short laugh, more than just delight. " Yes, I hope you will. But -- not yet."

He pressed the button that made the elevator go again. When the door opened, he walked out. "It's Friday. You can, of course, go back to London in the morning. But I am staying the weekend. If you decide to stay, ring me. In the morning."

In his vast hotel suite, alone again, Lestrade poured himself a stiff drink and lay back on the bed.

There was a telephone on the bedside table. His entire body was insistently aching, now. What if he rang Mycroft's room, dared him to come up and finish what he started?

He thought about that. His body felt that, was almost screaming for that. But after a long time, when he reached for the bedside table, it was not to call Mycroft. It was to switch out the light.

Mycroft wanted to play a game with him.

He didn't want to disappoint Mycroft by making the wrong move.

And he could play games, too.

* * *

Sherlock rang Mycroft on his mobile.

"Are you all right, then? We heard. . . Donovan told us what happened. What you did."

Mycroft was quietly astonished. He could not remember the last time his brother had called him to inquire about his personal welfare.

"Ah. Well. All's well that ends well. I'm fine."

"Lestrade?"

Here was a puzzle. Sherlock concerned for Lestrade? Impossible. Maybe, though, he was hoping he'd been hurt, killed. That would be more likely. Mycroft would never know how much of the secret video of John and Lestrade that Jack had shown to Sherlock, or worse, forced him to watch. But knew Sherlock burned with jealousy.

A very dangerous emotion.

"I just left him. He's fine. A little shaken, possibly. He was incredibly. . .brave. But he's quite safe."

"Where are you?"

"My hotel. Douglas. In the Isle of Man."

"Lestrade?"

"My dear fellow, your tender concern for Detective Inspector Lestrade is most touching. And curious, I might add. Lestrade is here too."

Silence as Sherlock processed the fact that they were both apparently in a hotel on Mann and not on the way back to London.

"May I. . .speak with him?"

"You don't imagine he's in my room, do you? He's up in 35. You can call the front desk. Hotel Grandview in Douglas."

"I see. Mycroft, may I offer you a bit of hard-earned advice?"

"From my little brother? hmmm. I shall take it under advisement. possibly. No promises. What is it? "

"Life is short, Mycroft."

"Is it?"

"Trust me. You never know until it's all taken from you. I have mine back, now. What do you intend to do?"

"Do?"

"About starting. Yours."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"I mean that, when you were in Yorkshire, the Rexworth case. . .I made certain observations."

"My dear, the only thing you were capable of observing was John, at that time, I recall."

"Untrue, I solved that murder, please give me credit where credit is due, Mycroft. I know it pains you to do so. My mind is usually capable of following more than one path of deduction at a time."

"Very well. You were saying. . .certain observations?"

"I did not fail to observe how you regarded Detective Inspector Lestrade."

Silence.

"Impossible, I did no such thing."

"I'm not saying you were aware of it yourself. No one else would have been. But I saw. And so, I say to you, Mycroft, probably the first and last time I will venture to waste my breath giving you, who know everything, advice. But there it is. Life is short." He rang off.

Mycroft looked out the window. The view was not so good here as up in the huge suite he had yielded to Lestrade. Up there, you could see the ocean surging, the twinkle of lights along the coastline. Up there, Lestrade was possibly sleeping. Or. . .waiting?

Or was he the one that was waiting, waiting for some sort of sign from Lestrade? what if it never came? He looked at the telephone, he could call him now. Then he shook his head.

No.

* * *

Lestrade was still awake in the dark. His body was positively vibrating with a craving that he could not understand ; after a few swallows of his drink he realized he didn't want to dull it, and he put the drink aside. He welcomed it. It was very different than the agonized ache of his unsatisfied love and longing for John, so much sharper now that he fully knew all he had lost. And this made him glad, finally. That he was capable of feeling something, anything different. Of course, nothing would ever feel like what he felt for John. He didn't even want that. No, if he was ever going to feel anything at all for another man, let it please, God, be very different.

There was a quiet but firm knock on the door to the suite. He thought he could tell, just from that precise sound, who it was at his door. At midnight. He didn't even notice that he was smiling, just a little, into the dark. He didn't bother going for a robe, either. He got out of bed, and crossed the huge dark suite in the faint grey light coming through the windows. He was at the double doors. When he opened these doors, something was going to begin. He was pretty sure he wasn't ready. But he didn't hesitate. Mycroft was there, his outward composure not disturbed by the sight of Lestrade nude in the moonlight. Lestrade opened the doors wider.

"What took you so long," he growled, as Mycroft took him in his arms.

* * *

Lestrade went to remove Mycroft's clothing but with a firm gesture Mycroft stopped his hand and did it himself, not slowly but not with any urgency, either. Somehow they found themselves in the bed and Mycroft seemed to be finding every sensitive secret place that made Lestrade hotter, harder. Lestrade tried to slow himself down; everything seemed to be moving so fast. He could see that Mycroft was very aroused but he seemed very calm as he brought Lestrade higher. Mycroft was very quiet, controlled. Somehow this made everything even hotter as Lestrade suppressed the moans and gasps that Mycroft induced. When it was almost too much to bear, Mycroft slid down between his legs and took him in his mouth where he delivered such wicked, expert and extreme sensations to his cock as he could never have imagined from Mycroft's reserved demeanor. With one hand he cleverly teased his rim, rubbing lube there, pressing, but not entering him, until it felt on fire. After working his shaft with his mouth and lingering maddeningly on his head at the back of his throat until he thought he would have to explode, Lestrade finally could no longer keep back, and a single agonized groan issued from between his clenched teeth, whereupon Mycroft reached a hand up to cover his mouth gently but firmly, forcing him to be quiet, which somehow pushed him all the way over the edge as he came, hard, right into Mycroft's tormenting throat, as he moaned helplessly into the palm of Mycroft's restraining hand, and finally Mycroft thrust his fingers into him at that very instant of coming, pushing the orgasm harder, longer. Before he had time to even think about gathering himself, his entire body quivering, he began to stroke his prostate relentlessly, torturing his hypersensitive cock.

He could feel waves of lust emanating from Mycroft despite his silence, his self-restraint somehow making their passion feel secret, even forbidden. His body felt almost worshiped and didn't know how to respond, even if Mycroft had given him the chance; but after teasing his ass open, bringing his cock back to full hardness with the deep stroking rhythm of his fingers, now Mycroft was gently but firmly turning him over onto his stomach, propping him over a pillow, making his heart hammer with anticipation. Mycroft whispered against his ear, so softly, ‘are you ready,’ to which he found he could not speak. Instead, he reached for one of Mycroft's hands, and entwined their fingers together as he grabbed a fistful of sheet, and nodded, once, and closed his eyes against the weakness and trembling that took him over when he felt Mycroft's cock poised to pierce him, no sound at all but their breaths, a heavy, sensual silence. To feel his cock, much bigger, thicker, than he expected, so hot inside him that he just pushed back up against it, taking it deep, taking it hard, all he could take and more, and he was grateful for Mycroft's hand covering his mouth again, holding back what surely would be the most shameless, most intense cries that had ever been wrung from him. Mycroft thrust into him with such masterful control that he was powerless to change it or affect it, ground down by his powerful strokes that came faster and harder. When Mycroft sensed he was almost there again, his hand that finally came away from his mouth to stroke his cock hard, twisting and bringing out his last drops, at the same time he made a final, deep, punishing thrust then withdrew abruptly and fast, taking his throbbing cock into his own hand and coming all over Lestrade's ass and back, confusing Lestrade by what felt like a denial, a refusal by Mycroft to lose himself completely.

They lay side by side, just panting quietly, coming back from the cloud of orgasm, but before sleep could take them Mycroft pulled him up, and he followed on legs that felt unequal to supporting himself, into the huge glass double shower, where he leaned against the cold marble-tiled wall and allowed Mycroft to gently soap him and rinse him and let the hot water wash away the burn where Mycroft had opened him. Then they wrapped in the heavy terry robes hanging here, and fell back into the bed, where a deep, heavy slumber came for them both.

　

In the morning, Lestrade woke to a note in Mycroft's beautiful hand on the table beside the bed.

I have been called urgently back to London.

The suite is yours for the weekend.

Thank you for last night.

MH

There was a discreet tapping at the door.

"What is it," he called lazily from the bed.

"Your breakfast, sir."

Lestrade smiled. His hand reached up to cover it, though, trying to recapture a little of that sensation.

He realized that they had never even kissed. Not once.

Lestrade padded out to enjoy his breakfast, crystal, fine china, a perfect omelet, coffee (how did Mycroft know he preferred coffee?) There was a white orchid in a silver vase on the table.

What would happen if he tried to kiss Mycroft?

At first, he decided he intended to kiss Mycroft for just as long as he liked.

Then he realized that he had gotten himself into trouble by pushing for things that others might not be ready or able to give. A certain name, a certain beloved face threatened to break back into his thoughts but he steadfastly, determinedly refused to permit it.

And so, he imagined all the ways they might kiss. When Mycroft was ready. He could wait.

But God, let it not be long, he prayed.

He then leisurely finished his breakfast, and regardless of his resolution of just moments before, amused himself by imagining all of the ways he might pleasurably torment and break Mycroft's iron reserve.

 

To be continued . .


	14. A Lesson With Mr. Hitchcock.

****_It’s in the trees --_  
it’s coming --  
  
The hounds of love are haunting me:  
I've always been a coward,  
and I don't know what's good for me.  
And I'm ashamed to be running away  
From nothing real  
  
 _Oh, here I go –_  
don't let me go –  
hold me down –  
It's coming for me through the trees –  
Help me, darling,  
help me, please --  
  
 _Lyrics to "Hounds of Love," all rights reserved Kate Bush_

 

 

Donovan was becoming slightly, actually more than slightly, infuriated at being left behind in London while Lestrade, Sherlock, John, and now, to add the final insult, even Mycroft Holmes – whom she had understood to exclusively restrict himself to work as an unseen hand behind the scenes – were all in on the glorious action in the Ramsay case, while she was relegated to plodding deskwork.

Yet she was still authorized by Lestrade to pursue one aspect of the case. The questioning of Mike Ramsay. As Lestrade appeared to have disappeared into the great North, she would, too – North London.

Pentonville Prison hadn’t changed. Not in a hundred years, she thought, marching down dreary, stuffy halls, the damp pressing in through walls erected in Victoria’s reign. Mike Ramsay hadn’t changed, either, except that he seemed even less willing to talk than before, and his solicitor, Granville, was less eager. Possibly his retainer was already running dry.

Donovan sat down and switched on the recorder. A uniformed officer stood by to observe. Donovan took her time organizing her papers, mostly for effect. It was working. Ramsay had become sufficiently deprived of feminine company, she figured, that her least gesture was intensely fascinating to him. He was watching her greedily and she shuddered to imagine what he might try if they were alone. She knew in her bones that this man was guilty of far more than abetting his little brother Jack in holding Sherlock captive and after Lestrade’s discovery of the captive Russian women, she had an idea what it might be. Today, she intended to find out.

"I hope you are feeling more talkative, Mr. Ramsay."

"Not particularly. But it does me a deal of good to see your . . . face," he said with just the faintest smirk. His solicitor frowned.

"Now, Mr. Ramsay, none of that. I want to say a few words to you, and see if they mean anything to you."

"Do you mean a word game?" He said eagerly. "Mother loved word games." Sally was taken aback for a moment. This was the first time that Ramsay had ever mentioned his mother. Somewhere, she remembered a note that the Ramsays’ mother had died in some sort of accident. She made a note to look it up and cursed herself for not having the facts at the ready.

Ramsay looked back at her innocently.

"Did she? I hope you enjoy this one," she said. She pulled out her list.

"Liverpool."

"Disgusting slum. Mostly. Try to avoid it. I do use the ferry there, on occasion. As does nearly everyone else who lives in the Isle of Man," he added, knowing that she would be thinking of Sherlock Holmes’ confinement in the trunk of the car, leaving the island by ferryboat. He himself had directly admitted nothing to this effect, but he and his brief were aware of John’s testimony, alleging that he, Mike Ramsay, had confessed this to him.  
  
The key to Ramsay’s defense was that his alleged confession to John had been made under extreme duress, as John was holding a very sharp knife to his throat at the time. Donovan and Lestrade, as well as the Crown, were of the considered opinion that the defense was likely to hold up. Of course, there was a great deal of other physical evidence in the case, but Donovan was driven to connect Ramsay to something more than the kidnapping of Sherlock Holmes.

"Toxteth."

"Even worse. Very dangerous, too," he added seriously. "I hope they don’t send you there. Nice girl like yourself, could get in a deal of trouble."

"No, not me," she said evenly. Ramsay immediately caught the implication that someone else from the Yard had been in Toxteth. She watched him carefully and was rewarded by the slightest tremor in his hand. Granville caught it too.

"Do you have direct questions to ask my client? I object to this line of questioning, if you want to call it that, as being most improper and confusing to the accused."

"Fine," Sally agreed. "When were you last in Toxteth, Mr. Ramsay?"

"I have not been in Toxteth since I was a child."

Interesting. He did not invoke his right to silence.

"I demand that you disclose any evidence you may have that would implicate my client in any crime occurring in Toxteth," Granville whined. She really could not imagine how he earned his bloated fee with a snotty attitude like that. Presumably he could turn on the charm for a jury.

"Right. I don’t mind telling you. We have reason to believe that you, Mr. Ramsay, are involved in an white slavery ring, undocumented immigrant women from Russia, principally, being held against their will and forced into prostitution. In Toxteth. I’m afraid that’s all I can share with you. At the moment."

Now Ramsay was really looking worried. He tried to sit on his hands to hide the tremor, but as he was shackled it was impossible.

"Hands on the table at all times, Ramsay," the duty officer warned.

He put his hands back on the table, where his metal shackles rattled slightly from his trembling.

"I’m not finished with the word game yet, Mr. Ramsay. See if any of these words mean anything to you: Katya . . .Natasha. . . Olga. . . ." Ramsay’s eyes were practically bulging out his head, but he bit his lips and remained silent. An angry kind of elation rose up in Donovan’s heart. She was on the right course. And she would get something out of him today.

"Sasha. . .Tatiana. . .Nadia. . ." She watched his reaction closely after every name. All she could see was anxious anticipation mixed with relief after each name. Interesting. Now that there was only one name left, he looked ready to collapse under some strong emotion.

These were the names from Ramsay’s laptop, and all of the women in the bomb shelter under the old radio station on Crescent Road answered to each of these same names. Except one. Of course, the laptop might have been used by Jack, too; it was a theory. But Donovan was betting it was Mike.

Ramsay was poised on the edge of his chair as if he would have leaped out of it, if he could. To run? To attack her? The duty officer came forward and pushed down on his shoulders. " No more of that, mate, unless you want to be accused of assaulting an officer," he warned. Ramsay’s solicitor whispered in his ear and he became still.

Donovan regarded him with knowing eyes. "Anything you’d like to say, Mr. Ramsay?"

"Is that . . .all?" Ramsay asked in a strangled voice.

Granville exploded. "Ramsay, I strongly advise you to invoke your right to remain silent at this time," he fumed.

"No, that’s not all," she said. "And you know it, don’t you?" She stood up and leaned over the table, eye to eye with Ramsay, over Granville’s whining objections of police intimidation.

"What’s the next name, Mike?"

She almost thought he mouthed the word, but it could have been wishful thinking.

"Where is she, Mike? What has happened to . . . Vera?"

Mike turned as white as a sheet and beads of sweat appeared on his brow. Brokenly, he uttered the words of privilege: "On advice of counsel, I refuse to answer . . . on the grounds I may incriminate myself."

"And that’s all he’s going to say on this line, Donovan," Granville said huffily. "You can sit here all day and he won’t say any different."

"That right, Ramsay?" He nodded, but more miserably than defiantly. A thought dawned on her.

"She’s still alive, then, is she, Mike? Is that it?"

Ramsay looked tortured but repeated, "On advice of counsel . . ."

"If she’s alive, and you help us find her, I swear we’ll try everything in our power to get the Crown to be lenient. But if she’s still alive and you don’t help me, and then we find she’s been harmed, or worse, God help you," she said. Ramsay’s head sank onto the table, but he would say no more.

"Interview terminated," she said crisply into the tape recorder.

"You had your chance," she said on the way out. "Granville, if he decides to get clever and do the right thing, you have my number."

* * *

Mycroft was in his Bentley, scrolling mindlessly through his Blackberry, driving through pouring rain. Every mile was making him feel worse. He stopped himself from listening, expecting his mobile to ring. Instead, he tried, and failed, to imagine Lestrade’s reaction, awakening alone, reading his note. Would he be disappointed? Relieved? Angry? Indifferent?

What he could imagine, though – and did, very, very vividly – was Lestrade’s face, lit with love and desire, bending over John’s, in the film from Lestrade’s flat. Mycroft was continually astonished at his inability to erase these images from his mind.

He was a man with a great deal of self-discipline, self-control; in this, he was like his brother – but more so. Many times he had inwardly cursed the day that he had agreed to help Donovan with her little problem, opening a Pandora’s box of feelings, wants, desires, better left untouched. And it was getting worse, in fact; much worse, now that he had actually succumbed to temptation. Now that he would give anything he had for Lestrade look at him like that, with that love, that desire.

Which would never happen. Of course. He understood that.

Since last night, he could no longer hide this fact from himself: instead, he acknowledged it.

And, call it what you liked, he ran from it as fast as he could.

Running away, however, didn’t stop the kaleidoscope of images running in an endless loop through his brain, a wild, passionate, disturbing mixture of Lestrade, intoxicating, in his arms last night, and Lestrade making desperate love to John.

Swearing at himself, tormented, he turned the car around and headed back north.

* * *

Lestrade pushed aside any thoughts of lazing the day away in the luxurious suite of Mycroft’s hotel. He fingered his mobile, trying to decide if he should call Mycroft, then laughed at himself, and felt good for doing so. He hadn’t laughed in a while. He thrust his mobile in his pocket and decided to make use of the day. Crime never sleeps, he chided himself, something he recalled from an old television show, maybe.

He also further resisted any impulse to return to London. He wanted to know more about the Ramsays. The crimes of the Ramsays were strongly pathological, with deep, complex motivations. The films were not the only indicia of their deepest impulses, he was sure. The crimes of Jack Ramsay seemed clearly symbolic; ritual repetitions of the planned murder of his unfaithful wife Sheila . . .possibly postponed as long as possible to prolong the enjoyment, the anticipation . . .or, because he was conflicted, needed to delay the moment of truth? Because, more simply, he wanted or needed Sherlock’s cooperation – which had taken longer than he had planned?

And why did he need Sherlock, exactly? A proxy, someone seemingly infallible, with almost superhuman powers in the world of crime . . .able to do, perhaps, what Jack felt unable or unequal to?

And what of Mike Ramsay? He needed to know more about what drove the man, what might have driven him to commit murder, maybe murders yet uncovered. And he felt strongly that if anything further was to be learned about the Ramsays, it would be here, on the Isle of Man, where the boys grew up, where Sherlock had been held. Significantly, held at Mike’s house, the house that he inherited from his mother.

Lestrade knew of only one witness, so far, who had known the Ramsay brothers in their youth. John’s interview with Geraldine Reston, the librarian, who told him that she lived on the same street as the Ramsay boys, when they were youths.

The library was closed, but he quickly tracked down Geraldine Reston’s home address. Her daughter politely explained that on Saturdays, her mother had a book group, and she didn’t know when she would be home. She willingly gave the address where the book group was held: The home of Felicia Killingsworth, in St. John.

And so, Lestrade found himself treading the same path through the lush garden as John, though this time in light drizzling rain, and knocking on the same raven’s head knocker. The door opened instantly and women were leaving, chatting amicably. But Felicia Killingsworth seemed as unsurprised to see Lestrade standing there in his black coat and no umbrella as she had been to see John.

He introduced himself and told her that he was looking for Geraldine Reston, and was rewarded as another woman, about the same age, though not as tall, came forward. Mrs. Killingsworth invited him in out of the rain.

He felt himself regarded by two sets of thoughtful, wise eyes. He felt an urge suddenly to tell these women everything that was troubling him about this terrible case, and maybe other things, too, then chided himself for being ridiculous. Everything today, though, felt more hopeful somehow, and he thought he understood why.

"I am pursuing the inquiry into the Ramsay case, which I understand you’ve heard of. In fact, both of you recently spoke about the Ramsay brothers to . . .John Watson, who was assisting the police with the investigation." He determinedly did not permit any emotion at all at uttering this name, and surprised himself when it took less effort than he had supposed. He explained that he understood from John’s statement that Geraldine Reston had lived on the same street as the Ramsays, years ago.

"It’s quite true. They didn’t move to the big house on Sea Cliff Drive until after the grandmother passed on. That was their mother’s family home. Before, they lived in Onchan. Mike Ramsay was always popular, athletic, you know. He was his father’s pride and joy. Jack was somewhat – withdrawn, I suppose you’d say, as a boy, and seemingly, the mother’s favorite. He was out of school a great deal, we understood he had some sort of problems, but never knew what. The boys were very close as children, inseparable, in fact."

"What about the drowning in the cove? Do you know what happened after Jack was cleared?"

"So you know about the boy that drowned in the cove? Well, then. The father, Mr. Ramsay, sent Jack to a reform school in Liverpool after that, over their poor mother’s wishes. He was a police officer, you know, thought it was his duty. Well, she hated him, after that. I heard gossip that she had formed . . . an attachment . . . to her doctor, who she saw for what they used to call "nerves," after Jack was sent away. And the next thing anyone knew, Mr. Ramsay filed for divorce, which was granted. She was on the brink of marrying the doctor fellow, when she had a terrible accident."

Lestrade felt an electric thrill. First, a questionable drowning. Now, a ‘terrible accident.’ The Ramsay brothers seemed prey to ill luck. "What sort of accident?"

"She fell down the stairs to their cellar. This was in the house on Sea Cliff Road, you understand. She broke her neck, died instantly, I heard. And although they were divorced, Mr. Ramsay was said to be broken hearted. He died of cancer about a year later. Everyone said it was because of his wife’s death."

"Did anyone say there was anything – suspicious– in Mrs. Ramsay’s death?"

"Certainly. The doctor, who was to marry her. He made a huge fuss over it, insisted that there was something wrong, but they could find nothing. And there were no suspects, you understand. Mr. Ramsay was on duty with his partner the night she died. The doctor himself was at a shift in the hospital, all night.  And Mike Ramsay, her oldest son, was at a neighbor’s house doing homework. And Jack, of course, was away in the reform school. No one had any thought of a stranger coming into the house to do away with her, there was no evidence of that, from what I recall. It was a very notorious thing, in those days, you understand. This is a small island, and we look out for our own," Geraldine finished somewhat defensively.

He questioned her further, but she recalled nothing more about the Ramsays after the death of their mother. When he rose to go, Mrs. Killingsworth stopped him.

"You know I met your . . .friend, John Watson. Can you tell me, is he well?"

"Very well," he said abruptly. Of all things he did not want to speak of today, it was John Watson. Mrs. Killingsworth pulled out a box.

"Did he ever tell you that I read his cards?"

Lestrade guffawed. "He most certainly did not. What do you mean?"

"I read cards. They can be helpful, when you do not know your way."

Lestrade frowned. This sounded daft.

"You’re saying you did this for John?"

Mrs. Killingsworth nodded. "But you understand that is private, I cannot tell you what his cards were, or what they meant to him."

Suddenly he was taken by a perverse curiosity to complete this little pilgrimage in John’s footsteps. "All right then, what do we do?"

"Draw three cards at random. Whichever you like."

He did it. "Turn them over."

The first card was a set of swords, and a troubled figure hiding his face. The women exchanged glances that seemed very troubled. "The Nine of Swords. The Lord of Cruelty. This is an ill-omened card. This represents an important element or influence in your past. This card signifies being dragged down by dishonor; participation in a regrettable act, perhaps. Feelings of guilt, mistrust, or doubt."  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000088rq/)

Lestrade’s mouth hung open,, and guilt washed over him. How did this woman know?

Felicia Killingsworth patted his hand. "This is the past only. You always have the ability to overcome it. The second card is . . . Death. This is the deciding factor for your present, for now." Here Lestrade saw a skeleton, riding a pale horse. His heart started pounding. He stood up away from the table. "No," she said, smiling, "the card does not mean actual death. It is a very positive card, in many ways . . . it shows that you are undergoing a major transformation, possibly traumatic, almost certainly unexpected . . .but necessary. A new beginning, shedding shackles of the past."  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00009asy/)

He gaped at her even more astonished than before. What power did this woman have with these cards? It seemed impossible that she could be looking into his heart. But seemingly, she was.

"The third card is the eight of pentacles." He saw a man working diligently, golden symbols floating around him. "This is the deciding element of your future. You must dedicate yourself fully to something, a great task or challenge. You will learn something important, something new. A new talent or skill, possibly. You must stick with something long enough to see it through."  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000ak9e/)

"The cards are not magic. They are a path to understanding. They mean what they mean to you, and you alone."

Lestrade thanked the women and left this house where he had learned, possibly, far more than he had bargained for. As he considered the card of the Nine of Swords, he realized there was only one destination for him now. He realized he really had already known this, but now understood it with clarity. And now, he felt ready.

He returned to the hotel, checked out, and made his way back across the channel by ferry one last time, and began the long drive to Yorkshire.

* * *

John had gone to the village of Cawton to rent movies from the video shop, all of the Hitchcock movies known to be connected to the case through either Jack Ramsay or Mike Ramsay. It was a long list but he got copies of them all. Returning to Riddleston Hall, he found that Sherlock had contrived to set up a projection screen in the billiard room. This was a room he was very happy to spend time in; when he still had amnesia after his injuries in Afghanistan, it was in this room that he had declared himself to Sherlock, still not remembering their true relationship, but fumbling toward it anyway, regardless of the darkness in his mind.

Sherlock had arranged for John to stop by the library and check out some books about Alfred Hitchcock; John had been surprised by how many there were. John had insisted that if they were going to watch movies all day, he needed popcorn, and had brought some bags of microwave popcorn back from the video store that Mrs. Blessing looked at in confusion, not ever using the microwave for this. But she had what she called 'real, proper' popcorn, one of her own secret treats, and sent him up with a fresh bowl and a few bottles of ale.

Shortly, they were arranged on long leather sofas, watching the first movie, Sherlock pretending at first to ignore the popcorn but then slowly sneaking an occasional bite and shushing John when the munching interfered with his concentration. John was trying to efficiently complete their homework by reading the library books at the same time that he watched the films.

"What, exactly, are we looking for, Sherlock?" He felt lost. He was not a classic film buff, and knew Sherlock’s knowledge of films was pretty well limited to what Jack Ramsay had forced him to watch.

"We are looking, John for anything that might help us understand what in these films planted the seeds of murder in the hearts of the Ramsays. . . ."

"What do you think, then, about Jack’s films?" He asked with trepidation. These were the films that Sherlock had been forced to watch, over and over again.

"The films had to do with . . . infidelity, also with taunting or teasing a man, leading him on. . ." he said calmly, steadily observing the wince that crossed John’s expressive face. "All of the films that Jack was obsessed with, had at their heart an unfaithful woman. And he believed Sheila was unfaithful . . . it doesn’t really matter whether she was, or was not.

"Clearly, Jack became fixated at some time in his life on the silent film, ‘ _Blackmail,’_ where the actress Anny Ondra cheats on her boyfriend, who is a Scotland Yard detective. She allows herself to be taken to the apartment of an artist, she removes her own clothing, and puts on a skimpy costume. . . when the man tries to kiss her, she pulls away, refuses. And then when he insists, to everyone’s surprise, the woman succeeds in stabbing the artist to death with a long knife. It is this, I know, that infuriated Jack . . .it was wrong, out of balance . . . the woman should be punished for infidelity, also for leading on the artist, teasing him. Jack told me this, but it is obvious if you look at his crimes.

"Because what he did was to dress these women to look like Anny Ondra in ‘ _Blackmail_ ’ . . .who does not look unlike Sheila Ramsay, in a limited way . . .Anny Ondra’s character in ‘ _The Manxman’_ was unfaithful, too. . .Then we come to ‘ _Psycho,_ ’ a film Jack highly approved of. The character of Marion Crane is unfaithful in a way, to her employer, stealing money, then inadvertently teasing, inflaming Norman Bates by disrobing to shower – while Norman watches through a peephole. . . .she is also punished, Norman stabbing her with a long knife in the shower. . .

"Then, we come to the films about doubles, about partners in crime: ‘ _Rope,_ ’ and ‘ _Strangers on a Train.’_ Clearly, at some point, Jack decided that his plans for murder required a partner. ‘ _Rope’_ and _‘Strangers on a Train’_ both feature pairs of men, involved in murder: in ‘ _Rope,_ ’ they actually commit the murder, just for fun, just to prove they can do it. In ‘ _Strangers on a Train,_ ’ one of the men tries to coerce the other into committing the murder he believes he wants – his wife, so he can be free to marry his real love; in exchange for the murder that he does want - his father, so he can be free from parental authority, so he can inherit.

"Jack wanted me to fill that role, wanted me to be his – partner in crime.  I think he wanted to do both kinds of murder.  With me, unfortunately."

"Why? Why not do it alone?"

"My theory is that at one time in his life, he did have a partner in crime, but that his partner was . . .unwilling to go farther, go where Jack longed to go . . . and where, somehow, he formed the belief that he could persuade me to go."

"Who"

"Come now, John, surely you can answer that,"

"Mike?"

"Precisely."

"Well, then what about Mike’s films?"

"I have no idea. That is why I had you bring them along. Let’s start with the one that Sheila said was Mike’s favorite . . . _’Marnie’."_  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000bbzs/)

 _'Marnie'_ was the strange tale of a woman , played by Tippi Hedren, who was a sort of con artist, going from job to job under assumed names, where she stole thousands of dollars from company safes, then moved on. She was discovered by her employer in a Philadelphia publishing house, Mark Rutland, played by Sean Connery. He claimed to be an amateur zoologist, and had a framed photograph of a jaguarundi in his office:

Mark: _"That’s ‘Sophie,’ . . .I, ah. . . . trained her,"_ he boasted to Marnie.

Marnie: _"Oh, what did you train her to do?"_

Mark: " _To trust me."_  
  
Marnie: _"Is that all?"_  
  
Mark: _"That’s a great deal . . .for a jaguarundi."_  
  
Later, Connery’s character discovers Marnie’s theft, and coerces her to marry him, or be turned over to the police, even though Marnie is clearly pathologically frigid:

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000ce7g/)  
  
Marnie: " _You don’t love me. I’m just something you’ve caught! You think I’m some kind of . . . animal that you’ve – trapped!"_  
  
Mark: _"That’s right, you are. And I’ve really caught a wild thing this time, haven’t I? I’ve tracked you and caught you, and by God, I’m going to keep you!"_  
  
After Mark forces himself on her on their honeymoon cruise, Marnie tries to commit suicide.

John was baffled by this film. He looked in the book in his lap, a book of Hitchcock film criticism. He read aloud:

"‘ _The problem for the female reader for whom Marnie’s articulation may have some experiential resonances is that, no matter how sympathetic she may be to Marnie’s analysis in the end it is Mark’s meanings to which she must subscribe as a consequence of the inexorable logic of Hitchcock’s narrative construction._ ’  
  
"Bloody hell, Sherlock!!"   John threw the book down.  "If this is supposed to help us solve a murder, that we don’t even know occurred, it’s beyond me. I admit it. But damn it, if you can tell me what all that just meant, I’ll give you a prize," he said, leaning over to distract Sherlock, if he was lucky, with a kiss.  
   
Sherlock seemed, actually, quite willing to be distracted. This was very new. John could not remember a time that Sherlock had ever put aside a hunt for clues to indulge John in this fashion. John pushed his advantage. Soon they were happily entangled on the couch, the film forgotten, until a polite knock on the door interrupted them.

"I thought we were alone this weekend?" Sherlock said irritably, which made John happy. He felt incredibly fortunate that Sherlock now regarded anything that interrupted his private time with John as an unacceptable intrusion, which after their long separation was like water to a man dying of thirst, he could never get enough of it. Neither, apparently, could Sherlock.

The door opened. And there, to their surprise, was Mycroft, squinting into the light of the projector in the darkened room.

"Is that . . .popcorn?" Was the first thing he asked.

"What are you doing here, Mycroft? It’s not your weekend," Sherlock said, rather gently, John thought; in the past, before his ordeal, Sherlock probably would have shouted abuse at Mycroft and thrown a billiard ball at his head if he had ventured onto the estate on a weekend not designated as his own. For as Lady Holmes had promised, she would designate each brother their own alternate weekends at Riddleston Hall, if they would just promise to spend more time in Yorkshire, a point upon which Sherlock had insisted and to which Mycroft had made no argument.

"Hmmm. . . .I’ve a few things to attend to, Sherlock, nothing that I can share with you, however," he said mysteriously. In fact, the only reason he was here was to possibly resume his unprecedented conversation with his brother; but now he felt constrained, foolish even. He glanced at the movie screen.

"‘ _Marnie_.’ I suppose you’re still hacking away at the Ramsay case, are you?" Mycroft asked, dropping uninvited into an armchair and staring at the screen.

"Yes, of course, you know that we are. What we can. From here."

"Why this film?"

"It was on the list that Jack’s ex-wife gave us. Of films that Mike Ramsay was . . .obsessed with."

"Ah yes, I heard about your tete-a-tete with the dear Mrs. "Stone" Malone." Mycroft grabbed a handful of popcorn. Soon all three were munching away and watching the movie.

"Marnie’s repressed, you know; what they called in those days ‘frigid.’ Won’t let Mark touch her, rejects love. She had a trauma as a child, wait, here it comes," Mycroft narrated as the film ended, showing that Marnie had as a child killed one of her mother’s male customers, thinking she was defending her mother, who was a prostitute. Thereafter, she was terrified of the color red, associated with blood, and of ever being touched or loved by a man. The film shows Marnie in the end as having hope to become "normal," though Mark’s patience and love.

Mycroft was, in fact, a film buff, and was able to dramatically recite large parts of the _‘Marnie’_ script from his photographic memory. John was amazed to see that Mycroft, too, had a theatrical side, like his brother. Sherlock threw popcorn at him to get him to shut up.

"What are the other movies?" Mycroft asked. John looked at the list from Sheila Malone, and said: "The original " _The Man Who Knew Too Much_ ," " _The 39 Steps_ ," and " _Family Plot_.""

"Well, nothing could be simpler. I don’t know why you didn’t just ask me," Mycroft said loftily. "Child’s play. You know I have an encyclopedic knowledge of films, Sherlock, you could have just asked my opinion."

"I know no such thing," Sherlock said disdainfully. "When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it."

"I might say the same to you, you know," Mycroft said somewhat challengingly. John was becoming puzzled at the brothers’ squabble, but knew better than to try and mediate it. All he could do was weather the storm, or try and escape the room without anyone noticing. As he tried to inch away from the sofa, Sherlock’s hand stayed him.

"John, don’t go. If anyone is to go, it shall be Mycroft. It’s my weekend," Sherlock said, still surly. John rolled his eyes and settled in the line of fire.

"If I go, you won’t have the benefit of my knowledge of the films of Alfred Hitchcock, which is extensive. I would happily watch the films with you, I’ve seen them all, but they always bear re-watching. Of course if you want to work it all out for yourself, I can’t stop you," Mycroft said. John could see that it would have been quite a thing to figure out which of them, as children, had been the more insufferable know-it-all. He decided to try and break through what looked to be an endless, pointless dispute.

"Mycroft. What can you tell us? I’ve been trying to read these books about the films. Pure rubbish - the books, not the movies," John amended.

"I’m quite happy to tell you, John. These films each have a theme, or at least feature, captivity or coercion. In ‘ _Marnie,’_ Mark traps Marnie, as she correctly observes, something like a wild animal. She has to stay with him, or be turned over to the police. She is a captive.  
  
"In "The Man Who Knew Too Much," a teenage girl is kidnapped and held against her will.  Our Mike obviously preferred the original because it's a girl, rather than the remake, with James Stewart and Doris Day -- because in that film, the kidnap victim was a 10 year old boy.  Girls, women, are more to Mike's taste.  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000gaqd/)  
  
"In " _The 39 Steps,"_ a woman is held captive by a fugitive, a man accused of murder, and she is actually handcuffed to him for much of the film, not knowing if he is a brutal murderer or not.  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000ds2t/)  
  
"Finally, in " _Family Plot,"_ two of the characters are a couple who have a secret chamber built into their garage, where they keep people that they kidnap for ransom. It should be mentioned that this is the only example of holding a captive for profit, rather than for more . . .personal reasons."  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000ff2z/)

[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0000hhe0/)  
  
Mycroft looked smugly at them both. Sherlock nodded thoughtfully. "Captivity, coercion, helpless women. . .a secret chamber . . ."

John and Sherlock looked at each other. Mike Ramsay’s cellar.

"I think," Sherlock announced, "that our Mike Ramsay had someone, a woman, down in that cellar . . . before I arrived."

There was a new voice at the door. It was Lestrade.

"And the question is," he said, "What has he done with her?"

* * *

Lestrade turned on the lights and was visibly shocked to see Mycroft slouched in one of the armchairs.

Mycroft went a little pale and was silent. He could not help trying to see if Lestrade was regarding John with any special emotion, but Lestrade didn’t even look John’s way. He was looking straight at Mycroft, his hands jammed in his coat pocket. Holding onto Mycroft’s note, in fact. Finally, he said sarcastically,

"Mycroft. Well. Looks like you wrapped up that ‘urgent business in London’ in record time. Unless I’ve taken a wrong turn, I believe this is West Yorkshire."

Mycroft found his voice and rose to his feet. "Greg – er, Lestrade, I need to — " but he faltered as Lestrade’s expression became harder, and also under the harsh scrutiny of his brother.

"Oh, well done, Mycroft. So much for advice," Sherlock exclaimed, clapping his hands.

John was utterly mystified. Everyone seemed to be in on a secret, and he didn’t know what it was. This was, in itself, unremarkable, he was even used to it. But this . . . Everyone was staring at each other with such a variety of unexpected expressions: Mycroft, tongue-tied, embarrassed, maybe something else, but struggling to hide whatever it was; Lestrade, angry, maybe — hurt? Sherlock, amused and irritated at the same time.  
  
John threw up his hands.  "Is somebody going to tell me what’s bloody going on around here?"

Everyone looked down for some reason. Finally, Lestrade said, "I’m here for Sherlock. I need a private word. Will you take a walk with me, Sherlock?" He asked, very respectfully. Sherlock looked at him for a moment, and then nodded and went out.

"Find a coat, Sherlock, it’s raining again, if you’re going out," John said after him somewhat nervously. Why was Lestrade here? Was it something new about the case? He prayed that it was not. He regretted even agreeing to watch these films, but was grateful, after all, that Mycroft’s appearance had interrupted what might have been hours of dwelling upon the psyches of Jack and Mike Ramsay.

Mycroft lapsed into a soulful silence that John chose not to interrupt. He wasn’t going to pry if nobody wanted to let him in on the mystery. But when Mycroft stood up and looked out toward the conservatory, the seed of a suspicion grew. Who was Mycroft watching? Sherlock? Or Lestrade?

These were deep waters. He drank the rest of his ale and settled into the couch with one of the horrible books.

* * *

In the conservatory, Sherlock examined the exotic plants, some of which had been brought by his father, Lord Anthony Delamere Holmes, from expeditions around the world. Lestrade followed a little behind him, then finally said:

"Sherlock. I have to say something to you. I’m sorry. For what I did. It was my fault, my fault entirely. You’re not to blame John."

"I don’t, not anymore," Sherlock said readily. Considering Lestrade had expected Sherlock to try and kill him again, this was disorienting.

"That’s good, that’s right, then. Because it’s all down to me. He never pretended not to love you, through and through., not for a single solitary second. He . . . needed help, and I shouldn’t have . . . .well, what happened, happened, and I won’t pretend it wasn’t what I wanted. You know I . . .loved him, I never tried to hide it. But I want you to know now that I know I was wrong. To try and take that. Even though . . . we thought you were dead. I tried before, too. Well, you know that."

"I know. And I can even, in a way, understand it, Lestrade. To a point."

"It’s over and done, and you have my word on that. It’s finished. And he’s told me that in no uncertain terms, too. More than once. Hell, John’s pretty much always told me that. I just wanted you to know. I don’t imagine you could ever forgive it. Maybe I couldn’t, if it were me. But I do value your friendship."

"Strange way of showing it."

"I know, I know, but . . . damn you, Sherlock, I’m not going to try and excuse myself. I’m very sorry."

He went to walk out. He had said what he came to say, and all that was left was to return to London. Alone.

There was a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Lestrade." Sherlock looked very grave, but he put out his hand. Lestrade shook it.

"Let’s try and forget about it, shall we? That seems to be the best thing all around," Sherlock said, his voice tight, but his gaze clear and free of the furious anger Lestrade had seen so many other times, when they had battled over John.

"Done," Lestrade agreed. "It’s more than I deserve."

"Not at all, we all deserve . . . to start over," Sherlock said, his face becoming haunted. "I learned many things during my . . .time with Jack. One of them was that jealousy, taken to an extreme, is pure poison, destructive to the . . . spirit. I went too far down that path . . .almost too far." He seemed to be looking inward, remembering. Then the reverie fell away, and Sherlock looked himself again. "Do you plan to stay the night? You’re quite welcome, you know," he said formally.

Lestrade considered. Now he felt as if Mycroft would think he had somehow chased him down to Riddleston Hall. Then he decided he didn’t care. If anything else was going to be said about last night, let Mycroft say it. Or not.

It looked like he and Mycroft were back to playing games.

This was one he intended to win. One way or another.

* * *

Dinner was a peculiar affair in the formal dining room of the Hall, stilted conversation which Sherlock, of all people, did the most to keep afloat. John observed that Mycroft and Lestrade spent the entire dinner either staring at each other, or deliberately not looking at each other, and saying very little, and nothing at all to one another. Even he was clever enough to suss this out, and he smiled into his wineglass. When Mrs. Blessing brought out her famous chocolate cake, Sherlock’s favorite but also, apparently, a great favorite of Mycroft’s, John stood up suddenly and grabbed Sherlock by the arm.

"We’ve been eating like horses these past two days, no cake for us, thanks. And we’re riding early in the morning aren’t we Sherlock so we’ll just turn in now," John said fast, knowing he sounded like an idiot. It was only just eight o’clock, and everyone knew Sherlock never went to bed early. Nevertheless Sherlock allowed himself to be hauled out of the room and up the stairs to their bedroom.

"Figured it out, have you?" Sherlock whispered against his neck, in bed.

"Of course, I may be slower than the Holmes brothers, but I get there in the end," John said proudly.

"It’s all right, then?" Sherlock asked casually, as though it really didn’t matter. John caressed his dear face.

"Of course it’s all right. I hope you know that there’s nothing that would make me happier than for Greg to be truly happy. He deserves it. And that’s all I want to say about him, if that’s all right with you?"

"Did you have something else you wanted to talk about?"

"Not a bit," John said happily, silencing him with a kiss.

* * *

The stampede of John and Sherlock from the dining room and the hasty withdrawal of a confused Mrs. Blessing left Mycroft and Lestrade suddenly alone. Greg fiddled with his fork in the chocolate icing. Mycroft wished he wasn’t sitting a mile away, across the vast Regency table.

"You want to know why I’m not in London," Mycroft finally said, his voice sounding horribly loud in the silence.

Lestrade gazed at him steadily. "If you want to tell me. If not, then I know where I stand, don’t I."

"I . . . was going."

"And? The truth, mind you."

"And I realized I wanted to talk to Sherlock. In person. We haven’t done that in a while, you see."

"All right," Lestrade said skeptically. "Why now, all of sudden?"

Mycroft actually gulped. He could lie, of course, say it was about the case, or family business, something to do with the estate. But he didn’t want to lie anymore. He realized he had been lying to himself for quite a while, and indirectly, to Lestrade too.

Lies of omission were still lies.

"Because he gave me some very good advice, last night, and I wanted to talk to him about it.  Now, however, I believe he told me everything I needed to hear.  Actually."

Lestrade was quietly surprised to hear this. In his experience neither brother ever took advice from the other.

"Anything you care to share with me? As long as we’re being honest here."

"Yes. Honest. That’s just it, you see. I haven’t been."

Now Lestrade’s face fell. He expected to hear something that would crush whatever nascent hopes he had had concerning Mycroft Holmes.

"My brother told me that life is short."

"I see. It’s common enough advice." He vividly remembered giving that advice to John, trying to impress upon him that they should not throw their chance at love away. He was starting to have an inkling that Sherlock Holmes may have been trying to say something similar to Mycroft, of all people.

"It is, but people don’t listen, you see. I didn’t. But now, I intend to."

"Good for you. I guess."

"Good for us. I hope."

Now they just looked at each other, the discomfort evaporating, something new taking its place. Something that felt warm, and right.

"I’m a little slow today. How is that?" Lestrade asked, but he was already grinning.

"Because now I’m going to tell you what I couldn’t tell you before. Why I was going back to London."

Now Lestrade was standing up, and circling the ridiculously vast dining table until they were standing together, and he could see those eyes, the ones that seemed to want to see through him. That he realized had, in fact, been looking for something in him, all this time. He had been too blind to see it.

"Greg, I . . . you understand, this is very hard for me to say — what you feel for John, what you had with John, that is – what I want. For – us. I want that for us. Do you think . . .you could ever feel that? Someday? For me, with me?  I'm being a fool, I know you can't.  It's why I left." Mycroft perceived that he was actually trembling. He had never felt so vulnerable, so exposed, in his life, and he didn’t know what to do or how to handle it. He was, in fact, terrified.

But everything became very much better as Lestrade came closer, and put his arms around him.

"No, I don’t. I don’t want that at all."

Mycroft held his breath, not believing that Lestrade could be so cruel, that he had been wrong after all.

"I understand."

"No, you don’t understand anything. Neither do I – I had no idea, you idiot, that . . . never mind. What I’m trying to say is, I loved John Watson, but no matter what I did, it hurt. Do you understand? It always hurt. Because he could never give me back what I wanted to give to him, what I wanted from him. I won’t do that again, not if I can help it."

"Does that mean . . . you’re willing to try?"

Lestrade nodded seriously. "More than willing. But, damn you, it looks like you’ve gotten ahead of me, without me knowing. Just -- give me a chance to catch up, will you? I don’t want to miss anything," he said, holding him tighter. It felt very good, very secure. There was no hesitation, despite Mycroft’s reticence at confessing his feelings. There was no reticence in his arms, in his body pressing against his.

Lestrade pulled him even tighter. "I believe you forgot something. Back at the hotel."

"Did I? What?"

"Let me show you," Lestrade said, and reached in to kiss him, slowly and gently when it almost seemed Mycroft might pull away a little, taking his time, and was rewarded to feel those lips, so reserved, so cool, that concealed something very warm, very hot, slowly melt under his. He didn’t push it harder. Not yet. Not while Mycroft was holding him like this, a kiss endless, cool and hot at once.  That made Lestrade begin to feel what lay hidden behind that formidable restraint.

He didn’t want to miss anything by rushing.

 

**_To be continued . . ._ **  
  
[Listen to Hounds of Love HERE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOwyRd9PPBk&feature=player_detailpage)

 


	15. A Brief PWP Interlude.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Shamelessly PWP Interlude in which nothing of importance happens in furtherance of solving the mystery . . .

In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Fifteen: "A Brief PWP Interlude."  
A SHAMELESSLY PWP INTERLUDE IN WHICH NOTHING OF IMPORTANCE HAPPENS CONCERNING SOLVING OF THE MYSTERY.

 

 

As I look into your eyes I see the sunrise,

The light behind your face helps me realize –

Will we sleep and sometimes love until the moon shines?

Maybe the next time I'll be yours – and maybe you'll be mine -

I don't know if it's even in your mind at all

It could be me —

at this moment in time

Love’s indescribable . . .

Is it in your mind at all?

It should be me,

It could be me –

Forever . . .

 

　  
Lyrics to "Sunrise," All rights reserved Simply Red (STFC Morning Glory Remix) **[Listen to Sunrise Remix HERE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWJkJ5qkiJE)**  
　  
　

　  
"Don’t you suppose we should move. . . somewhere more comfortable than the dining table," Mycroft murmured, as he had Lestrade half bent over the highly polished surface of the vast Regency dining table in Lady Holmes’ formal dining room, lit by a dazzling rock crystal chandelier.

"I don’t care," Lestrade said, cocky, not even trying to hide his amazement at his reversal of fortune in just two short days.  
Mycroft led him through long hallways until they came to a masculine bedroom, furnished in handsome, carefully chosen antiques, Mycroft’s own.

"Don’t worry – we’re in quite a different wing of the house from Sherlock and – John," Mycroft said quietly, unbuttoning Lestrade’s shirt with deliberation, relishing his palpable desire to tear at their clothes, and pushing his hands away when he tried. But Lestrade said, "None of that," and pushed Mycroft back onto the bed, hard, and threw his own shirt carelessly onto the floor, and climbed on top, beginning with Mycroft’s tie. Mycroft took it from Lestrade’s hands, and fingered the red silk. Lestrade bent down, his lips hovering at Mycroft’s neck, and said, "I know what you’re thinking."

"Do you?"

"You’re thinking," he whispered near Mycroft’s ear, "that you’d like to gag me. With that."

"Ah – very perceptive. And that’s just the first thing. . ."

"Let’s see how we do on our own, before we bring in the heavy artillery," Lestrade said roughly, helping them both out of the rest of their clothes, lying skin to skin, feeling the shock of the new, how they fit, warm to cool, and now he finally took Mycroft into his hand, licking his palm first, then feeling him growing harder and pulsing against his palm, Mycroft as silently as before, just sighing into his mouth as they kissed so long, hungry for it, so much more than had been missed from the night before, until Lestrade’s lips were sore but still they couldn’t stop; and then when he did, even for a moment, Mycroft’s fingers were in his hair, pulling him back, hard, greedy.

He ignored his own desires now, raging like a wildfire, and finally wrenched his lips from Mycroft’s to take him into his mouth, deeper than he thought he could, and felt an electric quiver as Mycroft seemed torn between pulling away and pushing deeper until a precious sound, a single desperate, sharp moan, escaped from Mycroft’s lips. This almost pushed Lestrade over the edge, this sign that he had that power to make him lose control, even a little; then he felt himself pulled up at the very moment he felt Mycroft start to shudder, until now he was the one crying out with frustration and need. This time, Mycroft didn’t try to stop his cries as he held him in a strong, sure embrace and entered him, joining them with an incomparable intensity.

Mycroft spoke only once, as Lestrade melted under his strong stroke, "Say it, say my name," and he when he did they spilled over into another realm, deeply, together, clinging hard to each other like they would never let go.

* * *

Mycroft’s bedroom looked east over the gardens, and the sun was rising higher, sparkling through low clouds, the rain having temporarily abated. Mycroft was awake and looking at Lestrade as he slept, unable to believe that he was here, Lestrade was here, apparently he wanted to be here, wasn’t running away as he himself had done, fearfully.

He slid carefully out of bed to draw the curtains against the rising sun, to let Lestrade have as much sleep as he wanted. He realized he wanted to keep him here, in his bed, by his side, as long as possible. Usually Mycroft was one to depart as soon as conveniently possible after any kind of sexual encounter; he insisted on sleeping quite alone, always. But this was very different, and he couldn’t imagine sleeping better than he had last night, pleasurably entwined with Lestrade.

Mycroft’s mobile vibrated on the bedside table. The ID was one he couldn’t ignore, for several reasons. It was Agent 009, whom he was running in Geneva at the moment. And whom he saw, more than occasionally, for certain liaisons in his townhouse in St. John’s Wood – and in various foreign cities – when mutually convenient or desirable.

Mycroft looked at Lestrade’s sleeping face, a peculiar and unfamiliar sensation of protectiveness? – possessiveness? – whatever it was, it washed over him, and he relished it.

He took the precaution of conducting the conversation very quietly and entirely in his excellent French:

"Mycroft. Do you know I’ve been thinking of you?"

"Don’t. Look, now’s not . . . convenient. May I telephone you – in an hour?"

"Why make me wait? Is it a game?"

"No. No more games. I don’t like to be . . . gauche, but there it is. I can’t see you anymore. I’m sorry, but, ahh, knowing you as I do — I feel  
sure you’ll quickly recover."

"Can’t? Or won’t? Ah, I see. Une affaire du coeur? You, Mycroft?" There was a short, bitter laugh.

"Yes, I hope it is. It’s none of your business, really. Is it?"

"No, it’s most certainly not. Well, all I can say is bonne chance, and all that, Mycroft. . .it’s been incredible. I hope you’ll soon wake up."

"And I hope quite the opposite. Goodbye, ‘Robert.’"

He put his mobile away and slid back into bed as softly as he could. But then he observed that Lestrade was smiling just faintly while trying quite ineffectively to pretend that he was still asleep.

"I know you’re awake," Mycroft said, mortified. "It’s no use pretending." Surely Lestrade hadn’t understood. Had he?

"That sounded awfully ‘gauche’ to me," Lestrade said, laughing now. "What a complete prick you are, Mycroft! Et quelle est exactement ce que vous espérez? (And what is it you hope, exactly?)"

Mycroft was as unused to anyone actually laughing at him as he was revealing any more tender feelings, when he actually had any, which was almost never. Until now. And how had it failed to come to his attention that Lestrade spoke French? He did not remember it anywhere in the files. Most vexing. As such, he sat up against the pillows, tongue-tied, then finally said lightly,

"I hope . . .that I may hope," and kissed Lestrade thoroughly and hard, before he could find any doubt in his eyes.

* * *

Several hours earlier, in another wing of Riddleston Hall, John looked out the french windows of their bedroom, the green damask chamber that had been his during his recovery from amnesia.

Although there was the faintest suggestion that dawn might be coming, it was still almost dark, and a few stars still twinkled through low grey clouds. He could see the outline of the darkened stables from here, and beyond to the farms. Although he could not see it, he knew that ultimately, concealed by darkness, there was the moor.

He had awoken to find Sherlock gone from his side, and he had a few minutes where he quite firmly had to tell himself not to worry about this.

Sherlock had started having nightmares after his captivity, and did not like to stay in bed after he awoke from one. Usually, he went for a walk on the grounds, or went downstairs and shot billiards. He did not really care to discuss these dreams, something with which John sympathized, having suffered from nightmares after Afghanistan. Talking about it really didn’t help.

But when Sherlock returned, John couldn’t tell whether he had been suffering any nightmare. He came back into the room quietly, still wearing his robe, carrying an armful of riding apparel. Also, a riding crop.

"You said we were riding early, John, let’s think about . . . getting ready," Sherlock said tentatively.

He threw the clothes on the bed, then gently laid the crop across them.

John recalled the electric moment he had seen Sherlock, wearing his hunting habit, astride his huge black hunter Mephisto, and had known himself to be madly in love, unable to show it. Sherlock was looking at him now and John knew he could see exactly what he was thinking. Sherlock remembered it too. Suddenly John had to tell him: "Do you know how much I wanted you, then, Sherlock?"

"What about . . .now?"

Sherlock was breathless now, and took John’s hand and wrapped it around the handle of the crop.

"You’ve been . . .very patient with me," Sherlock said. It was true. After their traumatic breach, John had not ventured any freedoms with Sherlock, letting Sherlock for once lead the way, down whatever paths he felt safe and comfortable. John was painfully aware that he had been abused, bound, hurt, mentally and physically, and not just by the Ramsays. And so, while his body burned to take everything Sherlock could give, he always held back and gently, lovingly, letting their passions stay on the safer side of ecstasy. And he was content, even glad, to stay there forever, if Sherlock was.

"Tell me what you want," he whispered. "Whatever you want."

Sherlock’s face became darker, and he pulled John to him. Now John remembered the night, in 221b, when Sherlock had lost control and thrown him against the wall . . . this felt like that storm coming. He held his breath.

"Will you let me do it to you, John?" He asked coolly, although John could see he was very aroused, so quickly. This was a puzzle. "I want you to know. . . what it feels like. I want to know what it feels like, with you. I never told you . . . . that before you, I never let another man . . .you’re the only one . . .what I mean is, I wasn’t a sub. Before. Before you."

John was shocked. They had been together for nearly a year before Sherlock had literally begged him to dominate him, whip him, torment him, something which John had always resisted, and continued to resist even when Sherlock first asked it of him, until he finally could resist no longer. He had his reasons, reasons that Sherlock did not seem curious about and which John far preferred to leave buried. But Sherlock had never, ever said anything like this. Or asked this of him.

"What are you talking about? Are you serious?" Sherlock just stared at him and he could see that it was true. It must be true. "Is it important to you?" He asked finally. He decided that asking why was . . .pointless. He knew very well what it was to want this.

Then he realized he wasn’t actually shocked, somehow, something in him had known. That what Sherlock had given him was something unique, that was only his.

Sherlock considered, as if trying to evaluate what it meant, for something to be important, and finally said, "I just know . . .that I want it. Now."

He waited. John always gave him what he wanted. Always. Sometimes, John made him wait, while John worked out how to get there. But now John was sitting on the edge of the bed. He lowered his head.

"One condition. You can’t – restrain me," John said, his voice already shaking a little from a slight dread mixed with, he realized, anticipation. He started to remove his own robe, but then he stopped to wait for a sign from Sherlock, what he wanted. He closed his eyes.

Sherlock pulled open the drawer of the bureau and withdrew a dark scarf and tied it firmly around John’s eyes. "That will do," Sherlock said, his voice steady. "I won’t gag you. I want to hear you."

John waited.

"Do you trust me, John?"

John realized he had to think about it, just for an instant. They had a safeword, of course. But there was still a dark side of Sherlock, a side that could be was cruel, even dangerous.

And he knew, very well, that as much as he tried to control it, he had his own dark side, cruel and dangerous. It was this side that refused to be tied down. It was this side that liked the feel of a crop in his hand. But all he said was,

"Yes."

There was silence as John heard Sherlock’s footfall on the old wood of the floor, circling a little.

Then his robe was roughly pulled off, leaving him naked. His skin felt hypersensitive and he felt the cloth rubbing as it was taken from him. He admonished himself to be stronger, or he would shortly be in a great deal of trouble. Because it was very clear Sherlock intended to do much more. He thought he could almost feel Sherlock’s satisfaction, watching his face, his expression behind the blindfold.

Sherlock put his hands on his shoulders and turned him until he thought he was facing the bed. But he didn’t kneel until Sherlock ordered him to, and was surprised that there was a pillow for his knees. Sherlock pushed his back a little and now he was kneeling over the side of the bed.

He felt the crop just stroking his back, the back of his thighs, lightly, making the skin under it shiver a little. Then there commenced a series of tickling sorts of snaps, that stung, like little papercuts until they blossomed into something warm, then hot.

The pattern was random, the rhythm dancing and controlled. John had almost no room in his brain for anything but absorbing the pain, yet some part of him was realizing, recognizing that of course, as always, as in everything, Sherlock knew precisely what he was doing.

And was brilliant at it.

He did not cry out. He was determined not to submit easily, if at all, no more than in form. He knew Sherlock would expect nothing less from him.

Although the room was cool, the fire low, he began sweating from the pain, from the sheer strain of holding himself against it, as the blows came faster, and stronger, and harder, no longer a tickle, but hard, expert strokes that inflamed him and took him out of his skin into an ethereal place between pain and pleasure, where he stayed suspended under Sherlock’s hand, no sound but their ragged panting, almost as one, and the snap of the crop against his flushed skin. He was so hard that any moment, if he let it happen, if his control slipped, he would just explode, but he held on with everything he had, as Sherlock thrashed him and shook him and took him down.

Finally he groaned, stifling the sound into the mattress, letting the burning take him over, refusing to beg for release. And although the strokes were coming even harder now, right to the edge of what he could take, he felt the perverse tenderness that came from knowing now that Sherlock knew just where to take him, where to take them both, and just how to get there. Finally his resolution not to submit slipped, in fact he let it go; and he was glad that Sherlock hadn’t gagged him because now he was crying out, shouting he didn’t know what, until Sherlock threw the crop aside and licked and petted his burning welts until they glowed. His entire body felt molten.

With an exultant moan Sherlock thrust into him and laid him open, flooding John with that unique power that comes only from yielding, giving all power away, letting Sherlock take everything from him, coming so hard that in the end it was just a burning trickle as he felt Sherlock finally give it up, too, and spill into him, falling at last over him exhausted, stroking his hair and murmuring incoherent words of passion and love.

When after a while they floated down from euphoria, Sherlock gently removed the blindfold from John’s eyes, and gently kissed his eyelids. They looked at each other, an understanding beyond words, finding each other more beautiful, more loved, possibly, than at any moment before.  
　

To be continued . .


	16. "The Guns of Brixton."

In the Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Sixteen: "The Guns of Brixton."

 

When they kick out your front door

How you gonna come?

With your hands on your head

Or on the trigger of your gun?

Shot down on the pavement

Waiting in death row

His game was survivin'

As in heaven – as in hell

You can crush us –

You can bruise us –

And even shoot us –

But oh- the guns of Brixton

You see, he feels like Ivan,

born under the Brixton sun.

His game is called survivin’

At the end of ‘The Harder They Come.’

You know it means no mercy –

They caught him with a gun;

No need for the Black Maria –

Goodbye to the Brixton sun.

You can crush us –

You can bruise us –

But you’ll have to answer to

the guns of Brixton.

 

Lyrics to ‘The Guns of Brixton,’ All rights reserved Paul Simonon and The Clash

　

At breakfast, Mycroft was simultaneously reading The Guardian, The Times, and scanning his mobile; but this did not prevent him from eyeing Sherlock and John as they entered the room over the top of the newspaper.

"Not riding this morning, after all? I see, John, that – ah – your . . .leg? . . .is troubling you. You bear it rather well," he drawled, in tones which John could not decide were meant to be sarcastic or teasing. The merest lift of Mycroft’s eyebrow signaled that Mycroft in fact observed everything, including the real reason for John’s stiffness, which John had thought he was concealing rather well. Considering. John scowled, and Mycroft nodded magisterially.

"Mind your business, and your manners, Mycroft. It’s still my weekend," Sherlock said sharply. "I imagine you could only wish –"

This interesting remark was cut off by Lestrade bursting into the room, his face deadly serious. Mycroft also rose from the table, staring at his mobile, his expression equally serious; or rather, more serious than usual.

"It’s happening again. Mycroft – you remember Toxteth, last week – we spoke of the ‘81 riots, Toxteth, and Brixton, ‘81 and ‘95? There’s rioting in London. Tottenham, Brixton, it’s spreading. I need to get to back now," Lestrade said. "I’m sorry. I need to leave. I’ll have to keep that unmarked car, there’s no time now."

"You’re coming with me," Mycroft said smoothly. "I am also called urgently back to London. Really, this time. Leave the keys to that car with me. Stubbins can drive it back to Liverpool, leave it at the ferry dock. We can even drive out the back, it’s a shortcut to the main route south."

"Right," Lestrade said distractedly. "Look, can we leave – right now? I’ll meet you at your car, I need to call in." He gave the keys to Mycroft. As Lestrade strode back out of the room, swearing, Sherlock followed him with his eyes, then glanced back at Mycroft.

"Well done, Mycroft," Sherlock said, with some warmth this time.

Mycroft did not look up from his mobile. "Mind your business, Sherlock. But – thank you," he said neutrally.

"Give me those keys, Mycroft. I’ll tell Stubbins," Sherlock volunteered. Mycroft tossed the keys to Sherlock, folding his newspapers and going to retrieve his coat and briefcase.

John was eating Mrs. Blessing’s hearty breakfast with a will, but stopped, intending to find the television and find out about the riots. Ominously, Sherlock was scanning his mobile, too. But observing the passing of the keys to Lestrade’s borrowed police car from the Isle of Man, he said, "Sherlock. What are you on about now?"

"I haven’t the faintest idea to what you are referring."

"Yes, you do."

Dramatic sigh.

"Sherlock."

"John, now – don’t be so suspicious. All right, then – I’ll tell you . . . later."

John stood up and crossed to where Sherlock was sitting. "You’ll tell me now, I think. And don’t think that I’m letting you get away with anything. Just because —" John leaned over to whisper in Sherlock’s ear. You never knew when – or how – Mycroft was listening. "Last night was last night – but that doesn’t mean I won’t make you pay dearly if you’ve any tricks up your sleeve, tricks you were planning on hiding from me. Just don’t think I won’t."

"In that case," Sherlock said wickedly, "I definitely won’t tell you." This resulted in John pulling Sherlock’s head back just a little harder than necessary to kiss him, to which Sherlock submitted so very willingly that things quickly became extremely distracting, such that by the time either of them thought to follow after Mycroft and Lestrade to say goodbye, the Bentley had already disappeared.

Only later did John wonder whether that had been Sherlock’s intention all along.

* * *

Back in London, Mycroft and Lestrade were forced by the violence in the north of the city to take circuitous routes, which Mycroft bore stoically, issuing instructions on his Blackberry to a variety of minions, while Lestrade followed the flare of the riots on his own mobile, becoming increasingly agitated as it became clear that many lives were at risk and police being attacked aggressively by the mob. Lestrade asked to be dropped at New Scotland Yard, which Mycroft did reluctantly. As Lestrade nearly lunged to leave the car, Mycroft held his arm.

"Greg. You’re still off Black Team. Do what you must, of course, but . . .I’m asking you, please – don’t put yourself at unnecessary risk. This isn’t like the riots before. They’re organized, they’re using their mobiles, it’s moving from place to place so quickly — the police can’t contain it or defend themselves, let alone the unfortunate people."

"What are you saying? It’s my job – they’re throwing incendiaries at the police! Firebombing, looting – it’s mad — everyone has to stand together, I’ll not be sitting behind my desk, I can tell you that," Lestrade smouldered, taking his arm away and leaving the car. Then he turned back and put his head in the window.

"But, Mycroft, look – I’ll call you. When I can. To let you know I’m all right. Trust me. I will be." And then, he was gone.

Mycroft watched his silvered head disappear into the doors of New Scotland Yard, wanting to kiss him very badly, mindful as no one else could be of all the CCTV cameras trained on them, and quite unable to handle the absolute dread that shook him as he contemplated real danger to Lestrade, and thus assiduously locking it away, then sped off to a meeting in a certain chamber in Thames House, Westminster.

* * *

Mycroft’s superior chose to attend the meeting via video conference. Mycroft was the only attendee. He knew exactly why he was called to task, and had already formulated appropriate responses even as his superior’s harassed visage stared at him across the huge plasma screen mounted on the wall of this particular conference room.

"Holmes. I’m far too busy right now with the riots to nanny after . . .malfunctions."

"Of course, sir. I am, however, unaware of any malfunctions at present. Other than the riots, as you correctly observe."

"In that case, I’m sure you have a very good explanation as to why internal reports from Liverpool record you firing your submachine gun at known Russian mafia operatives in Toxteth. I don’t recall authorizing any actions in Toxteth. Were you trying to start a riot yourself?"

"Sir. No. It was an unfortunate necessity, but a necessity nevertheless."

"Holmes, I don’t understand you. You said you didn’t care for fieldwork, wanted to be pulling the strings. Well, I’ve let you, haven’t I? Haven’t I given you your head? If you’re wanting to get back in the field, it would be damned inconvenient just now, I must say. But it could also have. . . distinct advantages. My . . . .opposite in our sister service needs someone with particular . . . .talents. I don’t mind telling you your name came up, more than once. Shall I put you forward?"

"Sir, you misunderstand. I am taking over an investigation — money laundering and human trafficking - - sex slavery in the Isle of Man and Merseyside. A previously unknown ring. I am, ah, recruiting Detective Inspector Lestrade from New Scotland Yard, he uncovered the early evidence, he’s very sharp. He, that is, we — encountered unexpected resistance during a minor reconnaissance. I trust it was not too difficult to filter. Sir."

"No, no, just get me a report. I certainly wish you hadn’t had to call in the locals. I suppose this Lestrade got in over his head, something in that line – yes? Most unlike you, Holmes. Now get some officers from SOCA in on it, stop fooling around on the streets, is that clear? Wait – no report just now, mind you, we don’t have any priority on that until after these damned riots are under control. It looks like Armageddon out there, Holmes. Get with Singh. I want a status report in one hour, both of you."

"Sir."

"And what shall I tell MI6? Based upon this Toxteth . . . adventure . . .it appears you ready to stop this ‘liaison’ business between agencies and make a move back into the field? Young man such as yourself, couldn’t entirely blame you . . .plenty of time to rot behind a desk when you’re my age. Think it over."

"What is the assignment? If I might ask?"

"No, you may not. If you’ve an interest, I’m to green light; MI6 shall brief you. But you’ll be given 00 status. If that interests you."

"Why do you imagine it would, sir?"

"Because, Holmes, it has not failed to come to my attention that you are planning, not to put too fine a point on it, a hit on Vladimir Kraslov. Just because I’m behind a desk up here doesn’t mean I don’t have eyes – and teeth. Unless you have an asset in place, it rather looks to me as if you were intending to carry it out yourself. Hence, my feeling that possibly a field assignment, and specifically 00 status, would be welcome. Do you have any comment?"

"No. Sir."

"I suppose you know that I can’t help you with this."

"Naturally, sir."

"I could order you not to."

Silence.

"Well, he’s a truly disgusting scoundrel, no question there. It’s to do with this trafficking ring?"

"Yes."

"I don’t want any — blowback."

Mycroft’s silence expressed how every unlikely that would be.

"Well then, that’s all. Back on with Singh, one hour, mind you. These riots are priority one, put this other thing aside. Like the poor, money laundering and sex slavery shall always be with us."

The screen went dark, and Mycroft obsessively checked his mobile for any communication from Lestrade as he went to his next meeting.

London was burning, and somebody had to come up with a plan.

* * *

"All right, all right, John, it’s perfectly safe," Sherlock finally admitted after John applied extreme measures to loosen his tongue. "I’m not going to involve myself in these riots, of course; nor am I returning to Liverpool; I’m not going to involve myself in this new lead, if that’s what it is, in the Ramsay case. That’s what you’re afraid of, isn’t it?"

John was visibly relieved. "Of course that’s what I’m bloody worried about!! Lestrade and Mycroft could have been killed, from what I hear! The Russian mafia! Sherlock, there's no need for you to go messing about, looking for captive women. Let the Yard handle it. You’ve done enough."

"No, I haven’t, John. There’s a crime here that no one’s scratched the surface of. Not yet."

His face was lit with the exuberant titillation that came only from chasing a trail of clues, and John had to admit that he was glad, after all, to see it. They might have been in 221b. Before.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, John, the murder of Mrs. Ramsay. The brothers’ mother."

"Who says it’s a murder?"

Sherlock’s ironic look, both skeptical and contemptuous, showed how very pathetic he thought this question was.

"Well, you do, it looks like," John admitted. "So, does that mean you want the car to . . .?"

" Exactly. Because we’re going to do some looking into the crime. It’s a cold case, John. I love cold cases, don’t try and spoil my fun. Mike Ramsay’s in jail, old Mr. Ramsay long dead, and Pete . . .don’t you see, no one will care, no one will try and stop me. It’s not dangerous, surely. And so, we drive the car back to the Isle of Man, as a courtesy to the Manx police, and you get that lovely female officer in Douglas - the one passing you notes, I believe I read in the reports – to give you the old file."

"Sergeant Claire Killingsworth. She wasn’t ‘passing me notes,’ Sherlock. It was an address. I was looking, Sherlock, for you. Don’t you remember?"

"Indeed. You can be so charming when you want to be, John. Particularly with the ladies. What were they calling you in Afghanistan – wait, it’s on the tip of my tongue – ‘Doctor Hotson.’ Well, well. I have noticed that. It is a talent which I must admit I also have, of course – but find inexpressibly painful and worse, boring, to deploy. You’ll help me, then?" Sherlock looked like a child anticipating a birthday treat. John could never say no to Sherlock, really, but especially when he was like this. He could even overlook the ‘Doctor Hotson’ remark.

For now.

"When were you planning we go?"

"What’s wrong with now?"

"It’s Sunday, Sherlock."

"True, but irrelevant."

"It’s not irrelevant, Sherlock, no one is going to want to drag out an old cold case file on a Sunday."

"Even less likely on Monday, when everyone is milling around, nosy, wanting to know what’s going on, what we’re doing. No, today is perfect, if we leave now and don’t waste any more time arguing. Let’s go, shall we?"

John sighed and realized he was smiling. The prospect of actually working on a nice, safe cold case, digging through dusty old files and autopsy photographs, hunting for witnesses probably dead and gone, was a welcome distraction, something to give Sherlock’s recovering brain cells a workout. He knew in his heart that keeping Sherlock up at the Riddleston Hall, pretending to attend to estate business and generally acting out the fantasy of a country squire was a foolish dream. A lovely dream, but a foolish one.

He got his coat and followed Sherlock out into the seemingly ceaseless pouring rain, the clouds so low and grey as to be almost black, blotting out the morning sun altogether. They headed back in Lestrade’s borrowed car down the long alley of trees toward the gates of Riddleston Hall.

As they headed down the drive, Sherlock stopped at the gates. They were locked. Sherlock began muttering, "the gate, the gate, the key, the key," and fumbling in his coat.

"Haven’t you got a key?" John asked.

Sherlock ignored him and kept fumbling, then made an exclamation of satisfaction.

"Won’t be a moment," Sherlock said. "Switch with me, drive out when I say, and I’ll lock the gate behind us," he said.

John made a mental note to ask Sherlock why, exactly, the gates of Riddleston Hall were always scrupulously kept locked. Sherlock pulled his coat over his head and ran out of the car.

John slid over into the driver’s seat and peered out the windshield. Sherlock swung the gates open and gestured for John to pull the car through. Through blinding sheets of rain he had just a moment to see two huge dark figures rush forward, dragging Sherlock fast away from the gates. He couldn’t believe his eyes, and his heartbeat exploded with adrenaline as he screamed, "Sherlock!!!"

He didn’t have his gun, it lay forgotten in the green bedroom. He scrambled frantically in the glovebox of this unmarked police car, praying for a weapon. Nothing but papers, a clipboard, a roll of crime scene tape, and a roadside flare. In the matter of a second he stuffed the flare into his sock and gunned the car, now seeing the large black SUV just ahead, Sherlock, crumpled, being dragged toward it and now a new figure was braced in the road right before his eyes, blasting his windshield with bullets, cracking the reinforced glass. John swerved, blinded, desperate not to hit Sherlock, striking a tree, whereupon the airbags exploded. His head was knocked back, stunning him just enough to make him unable to resist the large, hard arm that wrenched the car door open like the merest toy, dragging him down into the mud, then shoving him to his feet and pushing him toward the SUV with a cold gun muzzle pressed to the back of his head. He stopped resisting.

If they took him out, he wouldn’t be with Sherlock.

And wherever they were taking Sherlock, he had to be there.

No matter what.

In the black SUV, Sherlock and John were swiftly handcuffed together. Sherlock was bleeding from his temple, and John had no way to let out his fury as two hulking thugs in black ski masks and black leather coats squeezed on either side of them, pressing guns to their ribcages. It was very crowded and there was no way to reach down for the hidden flare, even if he could have used it against four armed men.

Outside, another black-masked man was slowly moving the still-operable unmarked police car, efficiently pulling it off the road and rolling it behind some bushes. He silently climbed into the front seat with the masked driver, and slammed the door shut. There was a loud, ominous click as the automatic door locks were activated. The SUV pulled out into the road, and there was silence for a few moments.

John could see the driver’s eyes, deep-set, dark circles, examining them dispassionately, finally narrowing. In a heavy Russian accent, articulating slowly and with little emphasis, the driver said over his shoulder:

"You idiots. It’s not him. I told you. We should have gone to the big house. You, back there. Tall one. Where is . . .Detective Inspector Lestrade? Of Scotland Yard?"

Sherlock and John exchanged a look of determination, imperceptible signals that no matter what, they wouldn’t tell these men anything.

"Okay. I get. We are going somewhere. Now. When we get there – you will tell me. Until then – shut up."

The gun muzzle was shoved even harder into his ribcage for emphasis at this.

They were driving down country roads, empty, mostly, on a Sunday morning, in a storm. Their wet coats quickly fogged up the windows, soon making it impossible to see out the side windows at all.

John had a time, now, to think. And what he thought was that of all the terrible ends he and Sherlock had ever risked, he never imagined that the end would come at the very gates of the place that he loved the most, where he had felt the safest, where Sherlock had been returned to him, where his life had started anew.

To be continued . . .


	17. A Little Assassination On The Side.

**In The Footsteps of the Master. Chapter Seventeen. A Little Assassination On The Side**.

At the close of his second video conference of the day with his superior – in which Mycroft and Singh laid out plans and points of attack for quelling the London riots – Mycroft was advised, privately, that the request of MI6, previously framed as an invitation, was now an assignment.

"I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the way things work by now, Holmes. By the way, you should know that this wasn’t my decision. I was assured the assignment was . . . .temporary. In light of your responsibilities here, you may have 48 hours to report. I suggest you make the most of them."

Mycroft retrieved a few necessary items from the safe in his office. On his way out of Thames House, Singh stopped him.

"Where do you think you’re going, Holmes? We’ve miles to go, yet."

Mycroft knew that the truth was the easiest misdirection.

"Haven’t you been paying attention? Things are moving North, fast. I’m for Liverpool. We can’t have this poison spreading or the whole country will be in flames. You’re in charge here until further notice, Singh – make the most of it." Mycroft gave an ironic nod, acknowledging their bitter rivalry and the fact that Singh would undoubtedly stab him in the back – figuratively if not literally – the moment he left the premises. The Machiavellian power plays between the two were epic; a source of endless entertainment for both.

Today, however, having done what he felt was his duty in respect to the riots, Mycroft turned his full focus upon the much more dangerous crisis that had been consuming him for the past day.

As his superior had already detected – for this, he blamed his indiscreet surfing of certain very secure computer files, leaving an unacceptably messy, traceable footprint – he had been in an extraordinary hurry — Mycroft was indeed planning a little assassination on the side.

* * *

Vladimir Kraslov was the top boss of the Liverpool Russian mafia. Kraslov ran an empire of guns, drugs, women, bootleg liquor and cigarettes through the port. He was heavily protected by corrupt elements of the local police; also, Mycroft knew from the Ramsay investigation, had at least one ally on the force in the Isle of Man – currently behind bars in Pentonville Prison.

And from eavesdropping upon clipped telephone conversations between Kraslov’s lieutenants after the raid in Toxteth, Mycroft was virtually certain Kraslov was planning a severe response. Kraslov was infamous for being methodically, ruthlessly, even mindlessly punitive. A carefully modulated system of revenge and reprisals was the entire means by which men such as Kraslov clawed their way to power, and the currency by which they kept it.

It was also clear that Kraslov now understood that the raid had not been instigated by his friends of the Liverpool police; but rather, a rogue detective named Lestrade, from Scotland Yard, sticking his nose where it had no business to be.

Mycroft’s new deadline to report to MI6 put his plans on a very accelerated countdown. He now bitterly regretted not telling Lestrade all of his suspicions on the ride down from Yorkshire; by waiting to confirm, to gather more data here in London, he had put Lestrade at risk.

But he had 48 hours. It was enough – if he could find a way to be two places at once.

He had surreptitiously programmed his mobile for GPS tracking on Lestrade’s mobile at all times. It looked like he was moving north. This was, in itself, terribly alarming; the biggest confrontations with rioters and police were in the north of the city. He made a call.

"Rennett. Take three men, your best. Yes, now – I don’t care about that. You are on immediate protection detail – on the man I’m sending to your mobile . . . right now. You have him? Yes, Scotland Yard. He’s been targeted by the Russian mob. Imminent. Yes, under my authority. Under no circumstances is he to come to harm. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if you fail. The riots will be no excuse. I want protection on his flat, too, until further order from me, and me alone. That is all."

Mycroft considered whether he dared risk driving out to find Lestrade, to explain in person. But he was nearly out of time.

He tried Lestrade’s mobile but it went straight to voicemail.

* * *

The call had come less than an hour before. A family of shopkeepers, the Trahns, had called Lestrade. "Look, I’m not free to discuss your case right now, the riots –"

"It’s not about the case. The looters are coming, Mr. Lestrade. They are coming to Little Saigon. I called the police but they haven’t sent enough. Please, if someone doesn’t help us now, we’ll lose everything," said Vicki Trahn, eldest daughter of the Trahn family of business owners in Little Saigon, panicked.

The Trahns had fled Vietnam in a flimsy boat on the South China Sea in the 1970s, and had prospered in London. The Trahn’s homewares shop was in Mare Street, Hackney, a close conglomeration of Vietnamese restaurants, nail salons, and shops called "Little Saigon." The Trahns had been willing to come forward to identify local gang members after their nephew had been knifed, coming back from a football game. Lestrade and Donovan had obtained information sufficient to make arrests. The family had been grateful, and Lestrade and Donovan had spent a few pleasant evenings with the Trahns in the family’s other concern, a thriving restaurant.

The case had been part of a larger push against gang violence in Hackney that was Superintendent Thomas Yount’s prize project; Hackney was designated as the "Olympic Borough," site of the Olympic village and sports facilities for the 2012 Olympic Games, and controlling rampant crime and gang violence there was a top political priority. Unsurprisingly, in Lestrade’s recent absences, DI Allyn had leaped into the breach with zeal. He had even seconded Yount in a recent press conference, just two days before the riots broke out, proclaiming their successes in pushing back against street violence.

Victory had been declared too soon.

"Look, lock up your shop, and stay off the street – tell your neighbors," Lestrade said. "I’ll try and get more officers out to you. I’ll try, all right?"

There was a sound of shrieking and breaking glass. Now he could hear Mrs. Trahn and her daughter sobbing in fear.

"Hold on, I’m coming," Lestrade said. "Donovan, get Sullivan, you’re with me. Gear up, get your riot guns, all the gear. We’re going to Little Saigon."

"The Trahns?"

He nodded. "They need help. We can’t wait for the plan, if there is a plan. Let’s do what we can. It’s just kids in hoodies," he said facetiously, checking his gear. Donovan grabbed Sergeant Sullivan, a new officer just transferred from the Yard’s gang violence unit. He shook his head grimly when she told him where they were going.

"I don’t like to say this – but by the time we get there, it will be too late," he said, matter-of-fact. Lestrade overheard.

"Shut it, Sullivan. If everyone takes that attitude, the city is going down. Let’s go. Take extra baton rounds," he cautioned, referring to the rubber bullets fired from riot guns. They followed Lestrade to the car, where he sped through streets strangely quiet, people having been warned to stay inside.

* * *

The abandoned streets of London in broad daylight made the city look like the set of a movie, one where zombies would shortly appear.

And they did.

As they penetrated the precincts near Little Saigon, they entered another world. Smoke was everywhere, shops, cars, trash bins all smoking from firebombs. Crowds of young hooded men, their faces shielded by balaclavas and bandanas, ran through the streets, shouting and breaking windows, looting shops. Many were carrying boxes of looted gear on their shoulders. Other groups sped by in organized groups on bicycles. Lestrade saw a few empty police cars, burning. Donovan called it in. They parked in a little alley behind the Trahn’s shop.

"They’re sending in a hundred uniformed now, sir. That should do it, do you think?"

Sullivan snorted. Lestrade said nothing, but pulled their car into an alley near the Trahn shop.

Donovan’s mobile trilled. "Can’t talk now," she hissed at Mycroft.

"I need Lestrade, is he with you?"

"We really can’t talk. You have heard of the riots?" she said sarcastically.

"It’s urgent."

She gave the mobile to Lestrade.

"Greg, listen to me – there’s no time. You’re in very grave danger. The Russians aren’t letting go of that business in Toxteth. They’re after you. You must watch your back at all times – all times, do you understand? I’ve sent some men. To protect you. Agent Rennett and three others. They are coming to you now. The code word is ‘Relativity.’ If they don’t say it – get away – or kill them."

"Are you mad, Mycroft? What - When – how do you know? And what about you –"

"I can take care of myself."

"You think I can’t handle myself?"

"Greg, just – just do it – because I’m asking you. If that means anything."

Lestrade was incapable of anything more coherent than an aggravated growl, and said, "All right, for now. I’ll call you later." He tried briefly to decide if Mycroft was making him angrier than he had ever been, or if he felt strange kind of happiness that Mycroft cared that much. Both, he decided.

Four men in black SWAT gear approached silently from a black van parked at the end of the alley. The tallest one looked at Lestrade. "Relativity," he said bluntly.

"Jesus Christ. Rennett, is it? I don’t care what your orders are. Make yourself useful. We’re going to hold this shop until the uniforms get here. Baton rounds only, mind you. If you don’t have them, stow your weapons."

Nods all around, but the new men clustered around Lestrade, clearly intending only to shield him.

They entered Tranh’s shop through the back and helped calm the terrified family, whose awe for Lestrade increased tenfold when they saw him leading a small army into their little shop. Out the barred windows, one could see random groups of hooded youths, laughing, shouting, tossing homemade firebombs into parked cars.

The sound of breaking glass was getting louder.

"Right. Let’s get into the street. I want a line guarding this shop. There aren’t enough of us to do more," Lestrade fumed. "Where are the damned uniforms?"

The buzzing of hooligan voices, breaking glass, was coming closer. The Trahns’ daughter was cowering and shouting at her parents in Vietnamese. "What are you saying to them," Donovan shouted over her hysterical cries.

"We have to go in the cellar. It’s not safe up here. They don’t want to leave the shop, it’s all they have. The restaurant is already gone, and my shop too, they wrecked everything," she said, weeping.

"Go down, we’ll protect you," Donovan said. The parents refused to budge, the old man standing with dignity. The women finally climbed down into the cellar, the daughter pulling her mother.

* * *

"Come on," Lestrade ordered. They donned riot helmets and pushed aside the metal security shutter covering the front door, and filed out into the sidewalk, lining up shoulder to shoulder.

At first, none of the hooligans seemed to notice. They were shattering colorful neon signs above the shops across the street and laughing at the smashing glass. One of the shops sold cameras, and a dozen youths were crawling through the window, seizing handfuls of gear.

A moment later, though, they started milling around the ends of the block, shouting colorful abuse at Lestrade’s men, cursing them.

A few empty cans were tossed at their heads, to general laughter.

Then one of the rioters came closer. "What’s in there’s so special? Must be somethin’ rare," he yelled. "Come on, then, lads - -- or haven’t you the bollocks?"

There was a general uproar at this, and suddenly it seemed that there were ten, the twenty rioters circling them, drawing ever closer, as if drawn by a magnet.

"Back off, lads, if you know what’s good for you," Lestrade shouted.

An eerie silence fell as the rioters hesitated.

Suddenly two of the masked boys grabbed a long metal bar that had been wrenched from a huge neon sign above one of the nearby Vietnamese restaurants. Other boys joined in, and they began pushing it tentatively towards Lestrade’s line. He brandished his riot gun and fired a warning shot, and the boys danced back a little.

"Not afraid of rubber bullets, are you, mates? Come on, you buggers, lets’ get ‘em," the apparent ringleader shrieked, to general rumbling of aggression. No one seemed to want to move first to breach Lestrade’s line, though.

Out of nowhere, a flaming bottle crashed at their feet. Donovan kicked it into the street.

"We need boots on the ground, here, Lestrade," Sullivan said.

There was a moment where the line of rioters swayed, moving in a few steps, then back, and then by silent consent, surged at the police line at the same instant as a mob of fifty or more rioters came charging around the corner and up the street, with one will, swerving toward the action.

Everything was happening in a flash. A hooligan leaped on Donovan, and she beat him back with her baton; Lestrade fired a baton round at the chest of a hooded boy, swinging a metal bar at their heads, and he fell back screaming in pain. Sullivan wielded his baton like a battle axe, and several youths fell into the street with bleeding head wounds.

This inflamed the churning crowd more, and now there was no more hesitating as the crowd started a unified charge the last few feet to overwhelm Lestrade’s line.

Two things happened then that saved them.

First, buses careened into Mare Street, riot police piling out, charging into the street.

And as a masked hooligan swung a gasoline-soaked flaming torch at Lestrade’s head, showering sparks on his helmet, Agent Rennett took deliberate aim with his Glock and shot him in the arm, whereupon he dropped the firebrand, shrieking, blood spattering his comrades who fell back in terror.

"No live rounds!!" Lestrade screamed over the hellish din. "Stow that, NOW!"

More police vans arrived, uniforms flooding the street, and charging the rioters with shields and batons as the youths fought back with rocks, bottles, bats, and improvised Molotov cocktails.

A police van exploded into flames just a hundred yards away.

The uniforms pushed the melee relentlessly up the street, with the effect that the crowd was being violently driven towards them. They were separated from the uniforms by the looters, a vulnerable island.

Lestrade saw their situation was desperate. He yanked the door of the shop open and ordered Donovan, Sullivan and the others inside. "We’ve got to put the shutter back up. We can’t hold here," he shouted above the din. He fired repeated baton rounds into the crowd to give them a chance to get inside, but Rennett and his men refused until Lestrade went first, which he finally did, cursing.

Inside, the din was muffled for a moment. But then there was a hammering at the metal shutter, and shouting. Lestrade ordered everyone ready with their riot guns. The shutter bent, the metal groaning. Mr. Trahn was still standing behind his cash register, sweat beading his forehead, but refusing to move despite their pleas for him to get back.

The shutter was folding now, pounded with the force of dozens of youths run berserk, and daylight shone through the cracks. They braced themselves to be overrun.

But as suddenly as the metal shutter had been battered in, the crowd could be heard retreating, and the sound of police pounding batons against riot shields, shouting though loudspeakers, was close outside.

The crowd was finally gone.

"We have to get the Trahns out of here," Lestrade said. With much weeping and resistance, Lestrade prevailed upon the family to leave the shop. They pushed the filing cabinets against the door as a barricade, then piled cautiously out into the alley, putting Mr. Trahn in their car and the mother and daughter in Rennett’s van. The alley was strewn with trash from overturned bins and there was a sound of crying, screaming and sirens everywhere. The sky overhead was darkened with smoke as if London had become a war zone.

In fact, it had.

They sped away from Little Saigon, having saved one family, one shop, among hundreds.

It was the best they could do.

* * *

Mycroft had a number of viable cover identities. Today, he was a middleman to arms dealers. A broker, of sorts.

This was highly convenient, as there was chatter that Kraslov’s gang was anxious to acquire some truly spectacular gear, immediately; gear which Mycroft offered to supply on only slightly usurious terms. The riots were seen as perfect cover to launch reprisals against rival gangs, the Albanians particularly.

Mycroft’s preferred method of eliminating Kraslov would have been a carefully planned assassination; there was no time, now, to plot Kraslov’s movements, to lie in wait at an appointed location for the perfect shot. No, if he was to take Kraslov out, it would have to be face to face.

A very personal murder.

As was fitting.

There was nothing more personal now to Mycroft than Lestrade. A large part of his brain was entirely devoted to nothing more than worrying, ceaselessly, about Lestrade, and not just his safety. Mycroft was a champion worrier, and everything about Lestrade triggered a flood of self-doubt, possessiveness, over-protectiveness, uncontrollable and almost without his conscious awareness. But Mycroft had plenty of brain power to spare for such mundane tasks as the murder of one of Britain’s biggest gangsters, particularly when that gangster had designs against Lestrade’s life. That would never be permitted.

Through a few (easily breached for Mycroft) walls of security, signs, passwords, cryptic conversations, Mycroft was invited to a meeting that very evening at a Russian supper club in Liverpool. With Kraslov.

"Tell Kraslov to bring some ladies, yes? Pleasure after business," Mycroft said to Kraslov’s lieutenant, a man with whom he had done business before, eliciting a brief, knowing chuckle. In certain circles, Mycroft, alias Sergei Ivanko, was known for lavish private parties, and a certain brand of ruthless connoisseurship when it came to women. In Russian mafia culture, men were men, and he knew well how to play the necessary games; meaningless to him, but always so usefully distracting to other men. Hopefully, even Kraslov.

* * *

Mycroft arrived in Liverpool by Learjet in the interests of time, taking a borrowed car from the small fleet maintained in a clandestine garage near the private airstrip. He took a single agent with him to act as driver. It would be expected. He decided to take the immense risk of going without any other support. His superior had made clear that this unilateral action was entirely his own; he didn’t have anyone close enough to call upon that he truly trusted for something as critical as this. However, arriving without protection, as a friend would, would be disarming to his target.

The St. Petersburg Supper Club was in a deceptively nondescript building not far from the Liverpool docks. It did not cater to tourists; nor locals, unless they were members of the Russian mafia, or their guests. After being vigorously patted down and submitting to scrutiny by hidden security cameras, Mycroft, aka Sergei, was waved into the club. It was almost midnight.

Inside, everything was disorientingly baroque: red velvet brocade banquettes, gilt, marble statuary, massive chandeliers, and a curtained stage where a supermodelesque singer crooned Russian pop songs on silver 7-inch Manolos under colored lights. The club was filled with brooding Russian gangsters and their girlfriends, dressed in vulgar couture from Versace and Cavalli. Everybody was knocking back vodka and champagne.

Mycroft was guided to a booth in the back, overlooking the crowd. Mycroft suppressed a smile of satisfaction when he recognized Kraslov, a huge, dark haired man with the shoulders and arms of a wrestler, his neck and hands adorned with the black tattoos of the Russian mafia, and soulful, blue deep-set eyes. With him was a single lieutenant and a couple of spectacular young women, heavily made up and picking at their vast plates of lobster.

When Mycroft approached, Kraslov waved the girls off, and they shuffled almost shyly onto the dance floor, where they spun to the music with each other. The lieutenant watched them with the concentration of a shark, utterly lacking in desire, but willing in the blink of an eye to kill. No other man in the club dared to even look in the girls’ direction.

These girls would definitely not be free to go at the end of the night, Mycroft perceived.

He hoped he would be.

* * *

Dinner was a quiet affair. Kraslov was in an irritable mood. He was going to have to take back some respect after his recent, now well known defeat in the Toxteth raid. Sure, it had only been a few girls, trash, really; his truly prime girls were kept in penthouse apartments in the better parts of the city. It was how it looked to others; that something could be taken from him. A message had to be sent, and the riots, spreading now to Liverpool, Manchester and other northern cities, were the perfect opportunity.

"You got here quickly, Sergei. I appreciate a friend who hastens when I call."

"I came in my LearJet. Should I delay such pleasure as dinner with my old friend? And more," he said, raising his glass toward the girls, who were now hanging nearby, bored, waiting for their instructions, and maybe a little hit of something. Kraslov ignored the girls, and they pouted.

"You have style, Sergei. I want one. My own jet . . . Never mind that now. You know what I am looking for, Sergei. Can you help?"

Mycroft pulled out a dummy mobile, loaded with photographs of state of the art rocket launchers, submachine guns, night vision goggles, explosives. All captured from gangs such as Kraslov’s own. These weapons were in a secure warehouse outside of London. But Kraslov didn’t need to know that. Decoy samples were on hand in a container at the Liverpool docks, if Kraslov wanted to see the real goods. It depended how much of a hurry he was in, how much he trusted ‘Sergei.’ Mycroft hoped he could persuade Kraslov to trust him, and retire to the more informal business of the evening. Where he would be vulnerable.

He made boldly proffered an obscenely bloated price for the transaction, hoping by its sheer audacity to whet Kraslov’s appetite. Like all noveau riche, the higher the price, the more desirable a product was: and rule pertained to jewels, cars, houses, women, as well as more mundane goods such as guns, drugs. Kraslov made a show of being unimpressed, but then he called for more vodka.

"In times like these, Sergei, fortune favors the brave. I have heard this is an old British saying. But it could be Russian, yes? What I care about tonight isn’t money, it is time. I need everything by tomorrow morning."

"Why not tonight?" Mycroft ventured, bluffing outrageously.

"Because I have a most inconvenient problem on my hands, it requires my personal attention. I would like to spend some time with you, my friend, and with the ladies, but I have another . . . engagement. Please excuse me. Viktor here will finish for me."

Mycroft became alarmed. Killing Kraslov in the middle of the club was the last resort, it would mean suicide.

He considered whether he would risk it.

He decided that it really wasn’t a question at all. If need be, he would. Without hesitation.

It would make Lestrade safe. That was all that mattered, now. He permitted himself a small moment of regret for everything he would miss. And of all the thoughts that he would have expected to flash through his mind at this moment, what he remembered was Lestrade, drunk, on the bed in the hotel, saying bitterly, "You've always had everything you've wanted in life, haven't you?"

But he hadn't. He hadn't even come close. Until now.

But first, before he threw his life away completely, he had to try and get Kraslov alone. His heart thundered and his brain was zooming at a million miles a second, but he kept his face perfectly composed.

* * *

"Anything I can help with?" ‘Sergei’ said sympathetically. "A man such as yourself, must have time to lay aside the cares of the world, enjoy the riches you have earned. Let someone else deal with your little problem."

Kraslov scowled. "I don’t mind telling you, Sergei, sometimes it’s impossible to find men with a brain, men you can trust. I sent some of my boys to grab a cop - - sticking his nose in my business. Bad precedent. I pay a lot to the local coppers, and we understand each other. This one, he’s playing outside my rules."

"Why should he do that?"

"He’s from Scotland Yard, looks like the London cops are cooking something up. I can’t believe it."

"Well, surely one cop isn’t a problem, is he?"

"If I had him, he wouldn’t be. And I will, soon: don’t worry. But my men – the fools — grabbed the wrong guy. Two, in fact. By mistake. Morons."

Mycroft froze, his veins flowing with pure ice. "However did they manage to do that, old friend?"

Kraslov slammed back his vodka shot. "They were driving this cop’s car! Apparently. But they’re not cops. Apparently. It’s a catastrophe. Even now, I have to do everything myself. But, these men – they may be part of it, they may know something – or it may just be a balls-up mess. It’s unavoidable, I’m afraid."

Mycroft slammed back his own shot. He really needed it. He was certain he knew who the two captive men were. He willed his hands not to shake, and they didn’t.

"Let me make things easy for us both. Do you have to go far? They’re not in London, are they? The riots, you know . . ."

"No, Leeds."

"Ah. Well, nothing could be simpler. Come in my LearJet."

Kraslov looked doubtful.

"Boss," Viktor said, a respectful warning grunt.

Mycroft stood up and grabbed one of the girls. Mycroft couldn’t decide if he’s seen her before, she had on so much makeup it was hard to tell. And they all looked alike, really. If he looked closely he was sure she would have needle tracks in her arm. She tried to wake up a little for the anticipated party.

"Don’t be a bore, Vladimir – bring the girls and some champagne! And a little something extra. You can do what you have to do – I’ll entertain the girls. And then, we can visit my warehouse, see my toys. All your problems will be solved by sunrise."

Kraslov frowned, then burst out laughing. "I love this guy!" He yelled, grabbing the other girl, who tried to hide the fact that she was cowering under his bearlike embrace.

To be continued . . .


	18. Farenheit One Thousand.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Eighteen: Farenheit One Thousand.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 3,560  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.

 

In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Eighteen: Farenheit One Thousand.

 

Despite being ordered to look down at the floor of the SUV, John made a strenuous effort to use his peripheral vision. This told him that they were being driven out of the West Yorkshire countryside into what had to be the city of Leeds.

Surprisingly, they didn’t get far into the city precincts. The outskirts of Leeds were ringed with industrial parks, vast featureless structures known as "tilt-ups" – mere concrete slabs, tilted up via crane to create warehouses, distribution centres. Mile after mile of virtually empty straight road divided the zone into grids. If you got lost here, you might not find your way out.

The SUV turned into a driveway with an automatic gate which the driver operated with a remote. The men had all taken their masks off as they left the countryside, which made John deeply fearful. They knew their faces had been seen. So, they didn’t care. Which meant only one thing.

They didn’t expect that he– or Sherlock – would be in any position to tell anyone what they looked like.

* * *

 

At some point during the drive, the men had relieved them of their mobiles. The controlled look on Sherlock’s face was not reassuring. John figured if he had come up with any plan, he would have started talking by now. Instead, since John and Sherlock were wedged together uncomfortably between two of their captors, hands cuffed tightly together, their fingers groped slowly and silently for any sharp object that could be used to pick the lock. Sherlock was world class when it came to escaping from handcuffs – but he needed something with which to pick the lock.

There was nothing.

After that became clear, their fingers became still, intertwined.

 

* * *

 

They drove into a cavernous, dimly lit warehouse. Stacks of boxes of what looked to be cigarettes and liquor were set near an enclosed office with a door and window in the middle of the football-field sized space. Outside the office were metal folding chairs, a table strewn with playing cards, a few empty glasses, and an overflowing ashtray. And over the back of one of the chairs, a carelessly slung submachine gun.

Having seen no cars or pedestrians anywhere near this soulless place, John thought it quite likely that no one at all would hear that gun.

They were dragged out of the car and prodded until they were sitting in the folding chairs. Two of the men sat, guns trained on them. The other two stood nearby. Their apparent leader, the driver, was scrolling through John and Sherlock’s mobiles. After a moment, he turned to John and Sherlock. His voice was thick, slow, and had a heavy Russian accent. But they understood every word he said.

"Okay. You’re not cops. But you know one."

They exchanged glances. Silence.

"We wait for our boss. When he comes, you will talk. But . . . he will be . . . pleased, if we do the hard work. So, tell me. Why was Detective Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard in your home? So far from London?"

Silence.

The man drew nearer. He grabbed a handful of Sherlock’s hair and pulled hard, and one of the others lunged forward instantly to hold John’s free arm back as he tried for the man’s throat.

Now the leader had Sherlock’s head pulled back. And a knife pressed to it. His face was expressionless. John could see Sherlock’s pulse beating in his neck.

"Gentlemen. Give me respect. Maybe – we do this one at a time. You - you, into the office now. We have our talk in private."

"Why not," Sherlock said, as though the knife weren’t there, as if he couldn’t feel the blade against his skin. His eyes implored John not to stop him. Before John could even react, their handcuff was unlocked.

As they pulled the cuffs apart, his hand grasped for Sherlock’s, but it slipped away. Sherlock was dragged from him.

"Don’t –" John shouted, and they held him down.

After the office door closed, blinds on the single window were snapped shut.

But he still had something to hold onto. He pulled his foot under the chair and looked away from the boxes of liquor.

　

* * *

 

Mycroft was giving Kraslov a tour of the LearJet.

They were in the air now, the city lights just visible beneath grey clouds below. If they went direct to Leeds the flight would take less than an hour; but Mycroft’s pilot (also his driver) would keep them in the air as long as Mycroft needed for his purposes – or until they ran low on fuel. Mycroft was designated co-pilot — only because it gave him more freedom to concentrate on the task at hand.

Kraslov’s lieutenant, Viktor, paced the small cabin like a nervous tiger. The girls were drinking champagne and cuddling on a sofa in a curtained alcove at the back of the jet, clearly relishing the glamour of it all. Kraslov was feeling expansive now, and made a move as if to dive in to ravish the alluring girls. Mycroft stopped him.

"Now, Vladimir, is your time to feel what one of these jets feels like under your own hands. I promise you, there’s nothing like it. The girls can wait – soon we will land."

Kraslov’s eyes sparkled as he drank in sight of the complex array of dials and buttons in the cockpit. Mycroft stood up out of the co-pilot’s chair.

"Really, my friend, you must try it – just once. You will want to buy one tomorrow, I assure you." Mycroft stood aside in the tiny space and gestured for Kraslov to take the co-pilot’s chair. It was a matter of pride, of machismo. Kraslov could not refuse to try what his friend ‘Sergei’ had mastered. And he didn’t.

He eased his bulk into the chair and let Mycroft point out a few of the simpler controls. The pilot smiled respectfully, and Kraslov didn’t pay any particular notice when he flipped a certain toggle switch.

 

* * *

 

Sherlock eyed the two men. One was tying him to a chair behind the desk while the other trained his gun in the center of Sherlock’s chest.

"Now. What is your real name. I’ve looked at your mobile, so don’t lie."

"Sherlock Holmes. If you’ve looked in my mobile, you can see I haven’t been in contact with Lestrade . . . for a long time." It was true. His mobile had been in police custody during his captivity and since his return, he and Lestrade had most certainly not been in phone contact.

"No matter," said the taller of the two, the one with the gun. He smiled and showed his teeth, flashy with gold fillings. "He was at the house. With you – and your friend. Whose house is it?"

"It is my house." There was no point lying. It was well known in the district that he and Mycroft were heirs to Lady Holmes’ Riddleston Hall. Depending on how long these men had been following Lestrade, they may have already verified this. Balance of probabilities, they had.

The gold-toothed man smiled as if he did not believe this. The emerging idea that this might not be able to be contained, that somehow this debacle could lead these men to his mother, made Sherlock’s flesh crawl.

"Why would Detective Inspector Lestrade come to your house?"

"Because – John Watson and I are both witnesses. In a murder case. It was near the estate that the murder happened. The trial is next month. Detective Inspector Lestrade wanted to interview Watson and me, to prepare for trial. It’s been in all the papers." He hoped these Russian thugs were hazy on jurisdictional matters – such as that the West Yorkshire police, and not Scotland Yard, were in charge of the Rexworth murder investigation.

His interrogator nodded as if he didn’t believe this either. He nodded to his confederate, who punched Sherlock hard in the stomach with his huge gloved paw. Sherlock saw stars and doubled over in pain. But he learned from the professionally administered blow that they didn’t have authority from their boss to do him any real damage. They were just being thorough, possibly passing the time, before they were handed over to the man in charge.

He smiled arrogantly, feeling a small moment of relief. "Look, if you want to find Detective Inspector Lestrade, I don’t know why you’re asking us. Look him up at his offices. At New Scotland Yard. I’m sure they’ll be happy to meet you."

He was struck again. This time with the butt of a gun.

So, he had been wrong. Unfortunately. These men were more than willing to do him damage. As long as he was still alive when the boss got here. But that was all right. Because as long as they were occupied with him, they would leave John alone.

He hoped.

 

* * *

 

Suddenly red and yellow lights were blinking and beeping urgently in the cockpit, and the pilot swore softly under his breath and struggled with the controls.

"What is it!!" Kraslov exclaimed.

"Don’t move, don’t worry," Mycroft said smoothly. "Viktor, you and the girls must buckle up now, I’m afraid. Nothing to worry about, just a spot of weather. Vladimir, I will show you what to do. It’s quite simple."

The plane was jerking alarmingly and the girls were whimpering, and Viktor snapped at them in Russian as he reluctantly strapped into a seat, not without first stumbling and striking his head against the overhead storage, dazing him slightly.

This was the moment. Mycroft threw a restraint made of a spare seatbelt around Kraslov’s arms and tightened it around the co-pilot’s seat with a swift, economical jerk. As he shouted his surprised anger, Mycroft held a knife to his throat.

"What are the names of the men you are holding in Leeds?" He said, softly, reasonably.

"Sergei, what the fuck –" Kraslov was trying vainly to free himself but couldn’t move an inch. "Viktor!!!!"

"Shut up. What are the names." He pressed the knife tighter.

The pilot was standing up now, having programmed a course on autopilot — and therefore had the freedom to point a huge gun at Viktor and the girls.

"If my associate has to shoot you, it will distract him from flying this plane. I assure you it is likely to crash, which would be unfortunate, but won’t save you, obviously. Sit still back there and be quiet — and maybe you will live," Mycroft said over his shoulder. Of course, he didn’t really want a gun fired in the cabin, most dangerous – but he was betting that Viktor wouldn’t know that.

Kraslov tried kicking at the controls in a vain attempt to sabotage the flight, but there was no room. Mycroft pressed the knife tighter and blood started welling and spilled in a slow trickle down his Adam’s apple.

"All right, let’s move this along, shall we? What if I told you the men are Sherlock Holmes and John Watson?" He looked deeply into Kraslov’s eyes, and saw from the signs there, and from the brief tension in his hands, that it was indeed true. Kraslov’s men had captured Sherlock and John, intending to take Lestrade.

"Where?"

Vladimir shook his head. He wasn’t going to open his mouth.

Mycroft knew everything about Vladimir Kraslov, his years in hard Russian prisons, his escape, his climb to power in Liverpool; it would take longer than Mycroft could spare to make him talk.

However, he might, just might, have fortune on his side.

Mycroft sighed, reaching into Vladimir’s pocket and retrieving his mobile. It was the work of a moment to retrieve the cryptic texts, texts that told a terrifying story — surveillance on Lestrade, plans to kill him once they had extracted everything Lestrade knew about their gang’s Liverpool operations. Following Lestrade to Riddleston Hall, lying in wait outside the gates of the estate; the kidnapping by mistake of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson in a rainstorm, as they drove Lestrade’s borrowed car.

Finally, Mycroft found the prize: Vladimir’s instruction to take them a warehouse in Leeds to await his personal attentions. Several texts since had gone unanswered, while Vladimir was enjoyably distracted by his friend "Sergei’s" entertaining company.

Mycroft spent a few frantic minutes unlocking the "restricted" mobile number of Kraslov’s man and tracing the mobile pings to a location on the outskirts of Leeds. He stared at the blinking dot on the map, assuring himself it was fixed and stationary. They were not driving, not moving. Zooming in on the map showed a vast industrial park.

Vladimir Kraslov was glaring at him. Mycroft found photos of Lestrade, and of Sherlock and John taken in the back of a vehicle. He held the photos closely up to Kraslov's face, making sure he looked.

"Now you know who this is for," Mycroft said against his ear, as he wrenched his head and broke his neck.

 

* * *

 

John tried several times to launch himself from the chair to the office door, but was held back by his Russian companions. Finally, they tied him to a chair almost courteously.

The walls of the little office must have been thick. His straining ears could hear nothing. But shadows playing against the blinds told the story.

The men watched him, grinning, to see if he would react. He summoned up deep reserves of strength of will and turned away from the violent images playing at the window.

"Can I have a drink," he asked with false cheer, nodding toward the empty glasses.

They ignored him. But then, one of the men pulled out a bottle of scotch from one of the stacked boxes. The man took a slug and gave the bottle to his confederate, who did the same. They shrugged at John, as if they wished they could give him a drink, but it was against their better judgment.

"How about a smoke, then?" he pursued with his most engaging, all-fellows-together expression.

After a muttered exchange in Russian, one of the men lit a cigarette and put it between John’s lips. His arms and chest were bound tightly to the back of a folding chair, but his hands were free and he was able by stretching down a little to puff on the cigarette. He tried very hard not to cough and sputter on the smoke.

The three men smoked companionably together in silence.

 

* * *

 

Several minutes later, Sherlock was bleeding from deep cuts in his eyebrows, nose, and lips, and his eyes were swelling shut. It was possible his jaw had been dislocated, or broken; it was making a strange crunching sound. But these men knew nothing of Sherlock’s tolerance for pain. He tried to make it look as if he were near his limit, though. No reason to tempt them to extravagance. For John’s sake, he kept his cries in, as much as he could.

"Try again, Mr. Holmes. Why was Detective Inspector Lestrade in your house?"

"I’ve told you, " he said slowly, his swollen tongue and lips making it hard to speak. "But I can tell you – something else. Something — that I think you’d better know – before you make a mistake."

"I’m listening."

"If you don’t — let us go, now — ‘Stone’ Malone will make you – answer for it."

The temperature in the room dropped as the men registered this name, a name they hadn’t expected to hear.

"What did you say?"

"That’s all you’ll get. You ought to — know better. If we — come to any harm — you’ll pay – More important, your — boss will pay. Who will he — blame?"

The Russians paused a moment, considering. One of them pulled out his mobile and it was clear that they were debating whether to disturb their boss over Sherlock’s threat.

　

* * *

 

After a few moments smoking, one of the two men – older, dark-haired and calm, and with a scarred face – said something in Russian to the other man, younger, fair-haired, and jumpier. They gestured toward the office where the other two men were obviously hard at work. John felt cold sweat trickle slowly down the back of his neck and along his spine. Knowing, and not knowing, what was happening in there was an agony beyond compare.

"Okay. To work," said the darker one, the one that had given him the cigarette. Without expression, began to pull off John’s shirt.

"What’re you doing?" John asked. He couldn’t stop the slight quaver.

"See work better," the man said matter-of-fact, as if this were obvious. He was holding up his glowing cigarette tip, examining it meditatively. Now John understood their willingness to share cigarettes. But just as it appeared that his man was going to apply this measure to loosen John’s tongue, he froze. And pointed at the extensive pattern of quite gruesome scars on John’s shoulder and stomach.

"Where you get?"

John jerked his head toward his left shoulder. "Shot. In Afghanistan. And this was a bomb, exploded right under me. Afghanistan, too."

The dark man’s eyes grew wider, reflecting . . . something. He was remembering. He put the cigarette butt down.

"They sent me to Afghanistan. I was only 16, right? I had rifle – but only sometimes bullets. And only sometimes, food. You understand?" He gave a wolfish grin. "Taliban." He pulled up his own shirt, showing a very long, wide and faint scar along his abdomen, almost masked by a complicated black tattoo, looking to John to have been a serious knife or bayonet wound.

"Look," John said. "This is some kind of mistake. I’m a doctor, a doctor, you understand? I don’t know why we’re here. We won’t say anything, I give you my word. Just-- let us go."

The man looked pained. His younger companion started an angry stream of Russian, accompanied by dramatic gestures that made clear he thought that it was time to start getting serious with their guest. But the dark man shook his head.

"We wait for boss. Let him say."

"Thank you, thank you."

The younger man scowled, muttering under his breath, but the dark man exchanged a look with John that could only be understood by men who had slept under the trail of Afghan rockets.

"What about that drink, then," John ventured, his heart turning somersaults.  The dark man nodded, and pulled open another nearby box. This time, it was vodka; Polish, not Russian, in a tall, expensive-looking bottle. He poured out three glasses and set the bottle on the table, handing one glass to John.

He awkwardly bent down to take a small sip, making it look like a large gulp, then bent over further as if coughing on the strong spirits. He heard the younger man give a scornful laugh and the dark man, a more sympathetic chuckle. Then they were talking quietly with their heads together, knocking back vodka, and not watching him – for the moment. It was all he needed.

He bent a little to the side and slipped his hand slowly down to his sock and pulled out the road flare from the police car.

This had a tab that had to be pulled, and this was the hardest part; but he thanked God his hands were free even though his arms were tied tightly to the chair, and he pulled the flare up and yanked the tab with his teeth just as the men started to look back, curious at his odd movements. But as they turned he hurled the glass of vodka at their faces, splashing them and leaving a little trail on the concrete floor. Now the flare sparkled red, and expanded like a miraculous red star at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and he held it away from his face and tossed it to the end of the trail, registering the whites of their eyes stretched with terror as he hurled himself backward as hard as he could, scrambling away from the explosion that traveled up their garments as they screamed, clawing helplessly at the fire that was consuming them.

The folding chair collapsed under him and he got free from his bonds – which was a very good thing, because the door to the office was opening now; as the first Russian came out shouting at the spectacle of the two burning men, staggering, shrieking inhumanly, John ran through the smoke with the metal chair and smashed it full into his face, and didn’t stop beating him with it until he stopped moving.

But now, one of the burning men fell against the cartons of liquor and John knew that in a flash, everything would be over.

For the merest second he was poised between going for Sherlock, or pulling the burning man away from the flammable cartons when the last Russian came running out of the office with a gun, and John’s subconscious had only the merest fraction of a instant to register that he had heard no shot, and that this meant Sherlock might still be safe, when the Russian flew back, red blood exploding from his chest. John didn’t hesitate at this surreal spectacle, but dove into the office and tore Sherlock’s bloody form from the chair and dragged him to the floor.

By the time he had pulled Sherlock not more than twenty feet his eyes were at level with a pair of polished handmade oxfords. A tall figure was towering over them.

In a state of wonder and shock, John recognized the grave face of Mycroft Holmes, lit by flames, and in his hand, a gun with a long silencer.


	19. Mysteries To Be Unlocked.

Title: In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Nineteen: Mysteries To Be Unlocked.  
Author: ghislainem70  
Rating: NC-17  
Word count: 3,500  
Disclaimer: I own nothing. All honours to Messrs Gatiss, Moffat, et al.  
Summary: Sherlock and John return to London to help DI Lestrade catch a serial killer who may not be what he seems.  
Warnings: Explicit violence, graphic gore and depictions of brutality, non-con, murder, explicit sex.  
Music: Will You Follow Me? Rob Dougan

Mycoft helped John drag the semi-conscious Sherlock as the flames mounted, the scorching heat blasting them, smoke billowing up. The writhing, burning men were still now.

"The boxes," John cried, "hurry- " as flames raced up the boxes of liquor. Mycroft shoved them out the door into darkness and rain. Mycroft's driver was covering the door with a machine gun.

"Go, take them," Mycroft ordered calmly, and the driver pulled Sherlock and John to a waiting car.

Mycroft did not follow. Instead, he took the machine gun, and to John's further shock, went back inside the flaming warehouse.

There were only seconds. He threw his own gun -- the one that had shot the Russian – at the feet of one of the burning men, unconscious now, or dead.

He strafed the boxes of liquor with the machine gun. Little bursts from the shattered bottles of vodka and scotch ignited a dazzling conflagration, engulfing the office and the bodies of the Russians, climbing to the distant roof as Mycroft hurled himself back out the door and now he was sprinting, the first time John had ever seen such a thing, and dove into the car.

As they screeched away through the pitch-dark, monumental regiment of warehouses, the flames lit their way out through the sheets of rain.

* * *

Donovan and Lestrade had been hard at it for the past eighteen hours, methodically plowing through hastily assembled files. It was very late, but at least half the staff were still hard at it under the fluorescent lights of the Yard's offices.

Top brass at Scotland Yard had promised the public that the criminal courts would hold hearings on the London riots, day and night, necessitating an unprecedented push for Yard officers to work up endless warrants, conduct interview after interview.

Finally, they took a short coffee break. Donovan distracted herself by thumbing through the murder book in the Ramsay case. She itched to get back to the Ramsay case, which her instincts told her remained only partly solved.

"Trial in a month," Donovan observed sharply. "Hard to see how we’ll pull it together with all this – " she gestured to the mountain of riot files. Lestrade nodded, trying not to lose the thread of the warrant he was trying to finish.

"Sir, I need to be working on this," she protested. She was tired, sick and tired, of the feeling that she was being ignored. And she was, but not for the reasons she supposed. "We don’t want to slip up at trial. Everything needs to be bulletproof. There’s got to be hundred officers working these riot files. You know as well as I do we’ll only arrest one out of a hundred, a thousand, even – "

"You’re right, of course. And it will be bulletproof, from what I’ve seen. So much videotape evidence – juries love it. The Ramsay case is in decent shape, Donovan, due to your hard work. It won’t go unnoticed, not if I have anything to say about it. But you have to learn, there’s always something unfinished and then, there’s always the next case."

Even as he said this, he suffered a flashback to 221b, Sherlock ill, crazed, Jack Ramsay dead at his hand: "Right through my heart, John," Sherlock had said. Films of the poor victims; the suggestion of a shadow of, possibly, another.

Mike Ramsay, turning pale and ill at the recitation of the poor Russian women’s names, at the absence of a single name, Vera.

The death of the brothers’ mother, in a convenient fall down the stairs.

Donovan was right. The Ramsay case had mysteries remaining to be unlocked.

Sherlock had allowed him a fresh start on their friendship. A debt of honor had to be paid, he felt this deeply now. No better way than to make sure everything about this case was nailed to the wall.

Unbidden, the image of the third card shown him by Felicia Killingsworth, the card that admonished him to stick with something to the very end, intruded into his thoughts.

"Donovan, I think we’ve done our bit for the riots, after all. Let’s take a break. Bring the murder book. We’re going over it all again."

* * *

Mycroft had Sherlock and John driven back to Riddleston Hall. Sherlock refused to be taken to hospital for his injuries, insisting with impatient gestures - since his jaw was apparently dislocated - that John would care for him. Mycroft did not try to overrule him.

"Mycroft. Are you going to explain any of this to me, to us?" John demanded, mystified, imagining that the Russians might try to storm Riddleston Hall. "What did the Russians want with Lestrade? How did you find us? And – all the rest? Shouldn’t we – do something?"

Mycroft looked his normal, unruffled self in the front of the car as they pulled up to the front portico of the Hall. He looked at John steadily and merely said, "Something has been done. I don’t think you need to worry about the Russians any more. As for Lestrade, he’s quite safe – now. As are you, and Sherlock."

"But – they were going to kill us!"

"But they didn’t. In any event, it’s over now. I assure you. But– I have to leave you now. I know you’ll take good care of my brother, won’t you, John?" Mycroft actually looked a little regretful, and gazed upon at Sherlock’s pitifully cut and bruised face with every sign of feeling very badly for him indeed. John intuited that Mycroft was only permitting himself this degree of obvious worry in Sherlock’s actual presence because Sherlock’s eyes were swollen nearly shut. Sherlock’s keen hearing was apparently intact, however, and he made a grunt that managed to sound both scornful and quarrelsome through clenched teeth.

"Of course, always, if he’ll let me . . .but, Mycroft, where are you going?"

Mycroft tried to conceal his pain. "I am called away on urgent business . . . rather indefinitely, by which I mean I don’t know when I’ll be back. And so, you will take good care of Sherlock, yes? He doesn’t like to admit it, but. . . he needs looking after. And John — try to make sure he doesn’t do anything he shouldn’t. Please."

He was gone before John, speechless at this announcement, could question him further as to his meaning, or Sherlock, dazed, could react.

* * *

McLeod showed her mettle by not shrieking at the sight of Sherlock’s bloody and swollen face as John pulled him up the stair into the great front hall.

She quickly prepared the ground floor study for him to rest in, lighting the fire and leaving stacks of pillows and blankets. John did his best with the numerous cuts, several of which would require stitches. But the dislocated jaw required more than antiseptic and hot water.

"I’ve called Dr. Foster to bring me a few things." he announced. "You need stitches, and serious attention to that jaw, and I want it done properly." A dislocated jaw could be popped back into place, but not without painkillers and muscle relaxants, none of which were on hand. And he absolutely refused to stitch Sherlock’s face without a local anesthetic, God forbid he should botch it and leave scars. Although he imagined Sherlock would secretly relish a few scars on his face.

Sherlock tried mightily to frown at him, apparently wanting to be left in peace, but his eyes were so swollen that it didn’t make much difference to his expression. John tried to conceal his horror at the state of Sherlock’s wounds, even after his careful cleaning. Ordinarily, wounds of any kind were objects of intense fascination which Sherlock was prone to poking and examining with mirrors and magnifier.

At first, John had thought it was something in the way of forensic research; now, he thought it was actually no more than a sort of boyish curiosity, inflated because of Sherlock’s heightened ability to tolerate pain that would knock lesser humans to their knees. He was relived and surprised, however, when it became clear that Sherlock wasn’t even interested in inspecting his wounds in the mirror. He must really be in a great deal of pain.

Sherlock lay back on the leather cushions of the divan and howled a protest through his painful jaw when John forced ice packs on his swollen eyes.

"Stop fussing with them, Sherlock, you’re being ridiculous," he said firmly, more firmly than he really cared to. When he permitted any of his natural tenderness to creep into his voice, Sherlock always became impossibly mulish, as if to prove he didn’t need anyone, or anything. John had surmised that this was a vestige of Sherlock’s many years alone.

He sometimes wondered what Sherlock had done, when he had gotten himself into scrapes, injuring himself, in cases before John. And then, not long ago, he had discovered a very well-equipped first aid kit hidden amongst the arcane rubbish in Sherlock’s bedroom in 221b, including even needle and sutures. He realized that Sherlock had simply, and no doubt competently, doctored himself. The idea gave him a unique pang in his heart.

"Just sit still and let the ice alone," he barked sharply, pushing these imaginings aside before Sherlock could detect them. Sherlock sucked air in impatiently through gritted teeth in lieu of a deep sigh. More than anything, Sherlock generally hated closing his eyes, for sleep or (almost) any other reason; it left him unable to work, and alone with the racing cacophony of his thoughts. However, something about John’s firm tone must have worked, because Sherlock finally stopped pulling at the ice packs and lay obediently still.

"And don’t open your mouth, you’ll make that jaw worse. After Doctor Foster comes, we’ll set it to rights," he said soothingly. What he didn’t tell him was that even after they restored his jaw to its normal position, Sherlock would have to keep his mouth closed for a week, maybe more. No point breaking this to him just yet. He tried not to imagine what an ordeal lay ahead of them.

Now Sherlock was squirming into the deep cushions, feeling with his fingertips at his wounds even as John pushed his hands away.

"Don’t touch, Sherlock — I’ve just cleaned everything! You’re impossible. I suppose you were being arrogant, as usual, and they tried to teach you a lesson, is that it?" John accused.

The tiniest lift of the corner of Sherlock’s mouth told all.

Whatever he had said to the Russians, he was pleased with himself, regardless of the price.

"You’re – incorrigible, do you know that, Sherlock? If you could ever just– try — try, for my sake, if you like, to take the path of least resistance . . . " The corner of Sherlock’s lip was really curling up quite smugly. John couldn’t know that Sherlock considered every one of his wounds to have been one possibly spared John. Through his puffy eyelids Sherlock had seen that John was unscathed.

He was rather pleased with himself indeed.

Now John could hear a rumbling and he realized it was Sherlock’s empty stomach. This raised the interesting question of what, exactly, to feed him when he couldn’t open his mouth. He telephoned the kitchen to consult with Mrs. Blessing.

"I remember when he had his wisdom teeth out, poor thing," She reminisced. "Poor Lady Holmes was in such a state, he just wouldn’t eat. Not at first. I made him three different kinds of soup, he wouldn’t touch any of it. My lovely custards, neither. So different to Mister Mycroft. Now that was a lad as really loved his food."

"Yes, thanks, but what are we to feed him? He has to eat something."

"There was only one thing he would touch, back then. Mind you, he was only a lad."

"Well?"

Mrs. Blessing told him.

* * *

An hour later, John had finished repairing Sherlock’s dislocated jaw with Doctor Foster’s help, muscle relaxants and painkillers, and had neatly stitched up the open cuts on Sherlock’s browbone and chin. He refused Foster’s offer to drive Sherlock into Harrogate to see a specialist friend, shocking the old gentleman. Sherlock had borne with it all with his typical stoicism, but his color was terrible.

Mrs. Blessing came into the study with tea and a silver dish on ice. It was, in fact, a huge serving of chocolate ice cream. As she started to announce the treat to Sherlock, John put his fingers to his lips.

"It’s all right, I’ll do it, Mrs. Blessing. Thanks very much."

She backed out of the room, tears in her kindly eyes at the horrible spectacle of Sherlock’s red and purple wounds under the ice packs.

"I know you’re exhausted, Sherlock, but I want you to get a little something in your stomach. And then, to sleep." He stroked the damp, dark curls away from his forehead, and Sherlock sighed a little and John noted he didn’t try to push his hand away. He must be exhausted, and finally almost ready to give it up, John thought. He lifted Sherlock and plumped the pillows so that he could eat and drink. Sherlock stubbornly gestured at the ice packs, wanting to try and feed himself.

"Don’t be stupid. You can barely see out of those eyes. I’ll do it." And he gently brought the cup to his lips, blowing to cool the tea. Sherlock jerked his head away like a child.

"Don’t make me force you, you — look, just do it for me, then – so I don’t worry."

After a long silence, Sherlock indicated a willingness to swallow some tea. But then he lost patience and began fumbling about. John intuited that, for some reason, he wanted his mobile. It had been lost in the fire. He reminded him of this.

"When that swelling goes down I’ll take away the ice and give you a pen and paper, and you can write me notes. Until then, we’ll just have to muddle through," John said patiently. He was so much better now than in the beginning at reading Sherlock, at knowing what he wanted. What he needed.

Sherlock was apoplectic at the loss of his mobile, though, so John decided it was time for a distraction.

"Open a tiny bit, I think you’ll like this," he said, spooning the melting chocolate cream between his puffy lips. And was rewarded by a brief sound that might have been "mmmmm," certainly not a sound John could recall him ever having made in respect to any sort of food at all. \

He took the liberty of grinning at this, delighted, knowing Sherlock couldn’t see (and if he could, John imagined that he definitely would refuse to eat a single other bite), and patiently spooned mouthfuls of ice cream one after another into his poor swollen mouth until, much more quickly than he had expected, it was entirely gone.

 

"That wasn’t so terrible, was it," he whispered, but Sherlock was quiet and still now under the ice packs. John put the bowl and spoon aside and tried to gently get up from the divan to let him sleep. But Sherlock’s fingers stretched out and feebly plucked at his sleeve. John understood. So as not to disturb his wounds, John settled himself on the floor beside the divan, his head leaning against the seat cushions. He reached his hand up to grasp Sherlock’s own.

And this was just how Mrs. Blessing found them, sleeping peacefully, when she came back quietly an hour later to take away the tea and empty ice cream dish.

* * *

Lestrade finally sent Donovan home, evidence in the Ramsay case swimming in his head, but he himself stayed on at the Yard with a few other stalwart toilers.

He was glad for the distraction of work. He had almost bottomless reserves of energy — when he didn’t spoil himself, as he had done recently – with drink. And because he was working so hard, he could not really worry overmuch about Mycroft Holmes, whom he had heard nothing from in more than 24 hours. Just as soon as he could, he intended to pry everything out of him about whatever it was that had set him off about the Russians.

After the business with Mycroft having sent Rennett and the other men to guard him during the riots, he had spotted them quietly shadowing him; he decided, after consideration, not to try and shake them. This was something that Mycroft had done to try and protect him. If he rejected this gesture, Lestrade imagined that Mycroft would read that as some sort of personal rejection, rather than a matter of professional pride. He had already decided that Mycroft was, for reasons he wondered if he would ever have a chance to find out, sensitive to rejection.

He was pushing these distracting thoughts from his mind and starting in with determination on a fresh arrest warrant, when his mobile buzzed. He looked down at the text:

"Come up to the helipad on the roof. Tell no one. MH."

He almost threw the warrant in the air in aggravation at Mycroft’s cloak-and-daggers routine. He was going to have to remind him that he was, after all, a detective with Scotland Yard: Mycroft didn’t need to try and impress him. Not like this, anyway, he smiled to himself as he slipped out unnoticed and took the elevator, and then a utility stair, to the roof of New Scotland Yard.

A helicopter hovered gently down on the red and white "X" as he opened the door to the roof, and the whooshing air from the blades blew his silver hair. He could see that the sun was just starting to rise. He had never been on the rooftop at dawn; the city was beautiful from up here. Mycroft Holmes jumped from the helicopter, ducking under the swirling blades.

Lestrade realized his heart actually leaped a little; no, make that a lot, to see Mycroft’s tall frame. Then Mycroft was at his side, and they tried to speak, but the din of the helicopter tore the words away and bore them away on the wind. Lestrade pulled him into the little stairwell.

"Mycroft, Jesus, where have you been? Why are you here like this? Don’t you think it’s time we just, I don’t know, went to dinner or something?" Lestrade asked breathlessly. He hadn’t realized that he was missing Mycroft at all, let alone quite this much, until this very moment, a fact that once he acknowledged, he refused to let frighten him in the slightest.

Mycroft was just looking at him, drinking him in, in fact, as though he might not see him again. Lestrade was very astute.

"You’re leaving," he said flatly.

"I must. Please believe me, it is not by my choice. I don’t know – when — I’ll see you again. I’m not supposed to be here, I’m an hour behind schedule. And I can’t tell you where I’m going. But. . . .I had to see you," he said, and just that simple admission said everything.

"Tell me," Lestrade ordered. "You have to tell me."

"Please understand that I can’t. Don’t ask me. Greg – I want you to take this key. It’s to – well, it’s to my house. In St. John’s Wood. Tell Rennett when you want to go, he’ll take you there. The Russians are . . . .handled. You’re quite safe now, but I . . . .I would feel a great deal better if you stayed there and not at your flat. You’ll be getting orders from Superintendent Yount to take a leave of absence, starting tomorrow." At Lestrade’s angry howl, Mycroft held up his hand commandingly, and Lestrade let him finish, his head spinning with confusion. "There’s simply no time. Rest assured, I’ve taken steps . . . you won’t be troubled again. By any of those thugs. No, please, don’t argue."

Lestrade stopped protesting and just stared at him. He wanted to argue, he wanted, in fact, to force Mycroft to tell him everything, every single thing; to let him handle it like a man, for himself, like he always did.

But Lestrade was starting to have an inkling that it wasn’t going to be enough any longer to do things the way he always had done. For himself. Alone.

And so, he bit his tongue and held out his hand, and Mycroft pressed a key into it. Mycroft’s hand shook a little, and Lestrade wrapped it in his own.

"Just come back to me, then. Don’t dare not come back to me, do you hear?" Lestrade said, and they just held each other hard, hearts beating with the fear of loss, feelings that they both understood might really be like the beginning of love, amazingly, but it wasn’t the time or place, now. Lestrade kissed him hard, putting everything he felt into it, without even understanding himself what that might be.

Mycroft pulled away and was gone without a word, before Lestrade could decide what he had felt in return.

He watched the helicopter rise and veer off, flying high away, until it passed over the dome of St. Peter’s and into the distance, finally disappearing as the sun struggled to rise between black storm clouds over the great city.


	20. It Only Hurts When I Sneer

The next morning, Sherlock absolutely rebelled against laying back on the divan with ice packs to his face.

"Don’t – you – remember–" he muttered through clenched teeth.

"Don’t talk, for God’s sake, Sherlock. I’m tying a bandage around your jaw so you won’t forget," John said, which he promptly did, upon which Sherlock looked as chagrined as it was possible for him to express with a bandage wound around his chin, tied in a floppy knot on the top of his head, and his face looking exactly like what it had been - a punching bag. John rummaged in the huge carved desk here and found a pad of paper and a pen.

"This is what you’ll do if you need to tell me something. But right now I shouldn’t think you need a thing. You’ve eaten – ice cream for breakfast, no less – had your pills – "

Here Sherlock brought forth a contemptuous snort. John ignored him.

"– and all that’s left is for you to lie back and do exactly nothing. Just for today. Tomorrow should be much better."

Sherlock seized the pad and pen from John’s hands and wrote out in swift block letters:

MOBILE

"It was lost in the fire, Sherlock: you remember, I know you do. We’ll get you a new one – but not for a day or so. It will do both of us good."

John tried to sound cheerful, but Sherlock wasn’t having any of it, and was scrawling another note at top speed:

LAPTOP

"You know that your mother doesn’t have a laptop – ours are in the flat – and it’s not Christmas and I’m not Santa Claus. Please, just forget it."

At this, Sherlock gave up. John savored the satisfaction of having redirected the speeding conveyance that was Sherlock’s train of thought. The moment, alas, was fleeting.

Sherlock was immediately possessed of another idea, as he sprang up and stalked down the Hall’s long corridors without regard for whether or not John was keeping up. After a few turns, John realized Sherlock was headed for the conservatory. A restful place, the conservatory housed Lady Holmes’ collection of rare orchids and other exotic plants acquired by Sherlock’s father, a noted ethnobotanist, from expeditions around the globe.

But instead of sitting in quiet contemplation amongst the plants, Sherlock dashed about, causing general havoc amongst the greenery; snipping cuttings, plucking blossoms, and tossing the motley collection into little white envelopes that he carefully folded from his pad of paper and labeled in pen. A few pots he thrust into John’s arms, which he clearly presumed would be waiting right there to receive them.

Sherlock stopped once to scribble an almost illegible note:

DON’T TOUCH THE PURPLE SAP

He then dashed out of the conservatory, John trailing patiently behind with a potted plant in each arm. He knew where Sherlock was going next. They entered Sherlock’s father’s long-abandoned laboratory.

* * *

Sherlock took the pots from John and began deconstructing the plant specimens, pulverizing some with a mortar and pestle, distilling others with strange liquids. The silence of his concentration was broken only when he cursed through clenched teeth as the bandage round his head unraveled and hung sloppily over the microscope, spoiling his examination.

As it appeared that Sherlock was adequately entertained, John quietly left the laboratory and took a walk down to the stables to visit the horses and his dog, Lucky. When he returned, he found Sherlock laying tranquilly back against one of the leather sofas. John wondered, not for the first time, whether Sherlock deliberately arranged himself in these provocative poses. Using his growing skills in the Science of Deduction, he figured that the balance of probabilities was, he did.

The effect was somewhat spoilt, however, by the sticky results of his work – a greyish-green paste – smeared all over his face. John’s exclamations of alarm he waved off with a lazy flap of his hand, and pretended to be trying to sleep.

"Are you going to tell me what you’ve put on your face? You do remember, Sherlock, that I’m your doctor, yes? "

Sherlock appeared to respond, for once, to John’s exasperation, and he sat up and wrote out another note which he handed to John with great formality:

FATHER’S RESEARCH ANTI-INFLAMMATORY SESQUITERPENE LACTONES

John made a mighty effort to recall botanical compounds from medical school; and summoned forth a hazy recollection of one of these compounds, helenalin, being found in the plant arnicia montana, an accepted homeopathic treatment for reduction of bruising and inflammation after surgery.

"Sherlock, do you have any idea what the hell you’re doing? Helenalin is very toxic. I don’t want you using this stuff without proper testing," he said firmly.

He was rewarded by a brief sneer which was again immediately abandoned as triggering sharp pain in Sherlock’s jaw. Sherlock sat up and carefully rubbed the paste off. His face looked remarkably better; the swelling was almost entirely gone and the bruising was also improved. Sherlock inspected the results in a mirror, looking very smug indeed. Satisfied, he permitted John to re-secure his facial bandages while he scribbled out a new note:

MANX POLICE MRS. RAMSAY

　

It seemed so long ago that they had driven out the gates of Riddleston Hall, on their way to try and view the file on the death of Mrs. Ramsay in an fall down the stair to the cellar, that John could hardly remember their agreement – rather, Sherlock’s demand — to drive out to Douglas, to try and review the old police file there.

John wanted to refuse to play along. But Sherlock, finished with his project and with nothing new on offer to distract him, suddenly looked so completely miserable that John knew he had to find something new for his brain to chew on – or there would be hell to pay.

And he would be the one doing the paying.

* * *

Lestrade fiddled with his mobile for a while before finally ringing Agent Rennett.

"Rennett. Are you ready, sir?"

That was just the question. He had thought about this hard for the past few hours since Mycroft’s departure. He was fighting a creeping feeling of being trapped by the cocoon of safety that Mycroft was so determinedly trying to envelop him in. He cherished his own flat, his independence. His flat, more than he could really afford but worth every penny for the serenity of its privacy and view of the city lights, was his refuge after punishing days on the job. And it was his; there, he called all the shots.

Was he ready? He took a deep breath.

"I’m coming down."

* * *

The house in St. John’s Wood was in a row of tall, narrow Edwardian houses. Mycroft’s house had a black door with a polished brass knocker; the windows were covered in heavy draperies. It was a house that looked secretive, as though it turned inward upon itself.

Rennett stood back a few steps to let him in the door and then nodded a brief goodbye, deliberately not revealing any curiosity. Lestrade imagined he was probably required to watch the outside of the house until relieved by another agent. So far, though, there had been no sign whatsoever of anyone, let alone Russia mobsters, intending to attack him.

He put the key in the lock, where it fit perfectly, but before he could push the door open it was opened for him. A slender, grey-haired man a simple, dark suit, with a long scar down the side of his face, held it open.

"Good evening, Mr. Lestrade. Please come in."

Lestrade stepped over the threshold and the man closed the door silently behind him, and took his coat.

"Hello," Lestrade said, surprised. He had assumed the house was empty.

"I’m Morris, sir. Mr. Holmes’ butler. He told me to expect you. Would you like to see you to your room now, or would you like a drink first?"

He opted for the drink, and Morris led him to a dark, narrow room lined with bookcases, furnished with comfortable leather chairs, and a serious looking antique desk with an immaculate clean surface, nothing like his own: a standard-issue grey steel piled high with files and notebooks and scrawled coffee-stained notes and telephone message slips from a hundred cases.

Morris said, "Mr. Holmes always has drinks in the library when he is at home, sir. I hope you’ll be comfortable." Morris ascertained that Lestrade would like a whisky and poured him out some of the same Laphroaig that he recalled drinking, once, at Mycroft’s mother’s estate. In fact, he recalled that drinks were also had in the library in Lady Holmes’ home, and smiled a little at the memory. He supposed that Mycroft must have been suffering, then; he had been blind to whatever it was that Mycroft had been feeling for him. After all, he had hidden it so very completely. But those secret feelings had been so much more, he was starting to understand, than he could possibly have imagined; he had for so long been blind to anything but his hopeless pursuit of John Watson.

He took a long drink and let thoughts of John just float there, to see if he could take it. And was strangely pleased when he found that he could; it was like embers fading, still fire at their heart, but destined to soon go cold.

Not without regret did he watch that fire die.

But it was time.

* * *

John did his very best, but after half an hour of polite wheedling, no one with the Manx police could find any grounds under known police protocol to give an old, closed investigation file – it wasn’t actually considered a case – to the famous, the notorious Sherlock Holmes, merely because he needed something to occupy his restless brain.

Even Sergeant Claire Killingsworth had been unwilling to stretch the rules. "Now, a request through proper channels – your friends at Scotland Yard, perhaps . . . but we can’t just send out our files to the public, you understand that, surely?"

"Thanks for trying to help, you’ve really been very kind," John said as warmly as he could with Sherlock’s basilisk eye upon him, as though searching for something that would aid him in enduring John Watson’s feeble wits. John was well acquainted with this expression. Usually, it was followed by a remark upon the very low numeric figures that made up certain individuals’ intelligence quotient.

Finally, another note was tossed at his feet:

FLIRTING IS NECESSARY.

 

John balled this one up and threw it in the fire. "Is that what you’d do, then?" He had seen Sherlock deploy his flirting technique on a variety of women, and occasionally, men, and usually to devastating effect; but never since they had been together.

Or at least, he realized, not in his presence. Sherlock’s swollen lip curled up a bit and he nodded impatiently.

"Well, it’s not what I’d do. What do you take me for?" John protested. "Look, I don’t hold with manipulating people to get what I want. Claire Killingsworth is a police officer, she deserves to be treated with respect."

Here, another contemptuous sneer, accompanied by a snort for emphasis and another wince.

"Serves you right," he couldn’t resist pointing out. But then a minor revelation occurred to him. "And I suppose you tried one on with Sally Donovan, back in the day, is that it? And that’s why she can’t stand you, But she saw through it, she’s nobody’s fool. You may as well admit it."

YOU ARE ONLY PARTIALLY CORRECT AS USUAL.

"You’re in a foul mood, but this is unworthy of you, Sherlock. You know, you don’t need to do that to people, not always, not like you think – I think you just do it to — play a game. Sometimes just being honest and kind is enough to get what you want."

Sherlock was still for a moment, and maybe looked a little ashamed. But it was hard to tell. He wrote something new out, emphatically, in huge letters, but apparently thought the better of it and tore the note into pieces, and stared morosely at the wall with what John perceived was an attempt at an expression of extreme ennui. He decided these were not the best circumstances for a debate on morals with this peculiarly difficult patient. He stood up and pulled his coat on.

"I’m going out again, while we have a break in the rain. Do you want me to bring you a book or something?"

JACK RAMSAY’S ROOMMATE.

Sherlock was looking at him intently through his twin blackened eyes. John sat down as a thrill plucked its way down his spine. Sherlock never spoke of Jack Ramsay.

"Sherlock, I know you were with him. It was a long time; so long. I would do anything, give anything, if I could turn back time and have found you myself, so none of it, none of the rest — " Now he was choking on the words, words that led to an even more painful topic that he had never expected to arise today, of all days. But to his relief, rather than looking at him with accusatory eyes, Sherlock was simply looking impatient and aggravated, and threw a fresh note at John.

INCORRIGIBLES.

"You’re the incorrigible one, I told you that already. Couldn’t you please just spell out what you are thinking?"

Sherlock glared at him. His brain was already miles, so many miles, down the shining paths of deduction. Stopping now to explain, to be explicit for a lesser intellect, even John’s, turning around, backtracking, losing time explaining painfully obvious facts when he could deploy his mental faculties so much more effectively by just zooming ahead, leaving the plodders behind to pick up his meager clues if they could, his bread crumbs through the forest of clues — it was intolerable, excruciating, unendurable, and worst of all, always a waste of time.

* * *

Sally Donovan had been sent home by Lestrade with strict orders to take a day off after working for nearly three weeks straight. At her modest flat in Earl’s Court, she kicked off her shoes and flopped back on the sofa to watch mindless television, flipping channels in a way that would have annoyed her to no end if another person were doing it. She particularly avoided the news.

Just when she was starting to relax, there was a knock at her door. But by the time she got there, whoever had knocked was gone, leaving a large manila envelope on her doormat. She took it by its edges so as not to leave fingerprints. It had her name written across the front. The handwriting was not familiar to her.

She held it up to the light. No light penetrated the envelope but she could sense the heft of something heavier than paper inside.

She sniffed the envelope as she had seen Sherlock do, without really understanding why, and felt faintly silly.

She supposed she should wear gloves, and fished in her handbag until she found surgical gloves. Thus equipped, she opened the envelope to find a note folded around a common silver key, like the key to a flat, dangling from a silver keychain in the shape of a letter. The letter "V".

The note said, "This key was found among the effects of Vladimir Kraslov, deceased. His body may be found at – " here the note gave an address in Leeds.

Vladimir Kraslov. She pulled out her briefcase and looked at her notes from the encrypted recovered from Mike Ramsay’s laptop. As Lestrade had explained, much of the information had to do with money laundering, including names of men who figured in the criminal underworld of the great North: Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds. An investigation had been opened in conjunction with SOCA - the Serious Organized Crimes Agency.

Among those names, prominently, had been Vladimir Kraslov.

Now, someone wanted her to know that Kraslov was dead.

She dangled the keychain in the light.

"V" for Vladimir?

Ramsay’s laptop had also yielded up a list of names of Russian women being held as part of a sex slavery ring, women rescued by Lestrade and, he had confided, Mycroft Holmes – of all people.

Vladimir Kraslov was the suspected boss of a larger sex slavery ring in the North. Revoltingly, Ramsay’s list of Natashas and Olgas also had a crude tally of the profitability of each. It was a surprisingly large sum.

The missing woman, Vera, however, was a name that had no list of pounds earned associated with it. This name stood alone.

"V" for Vera?

* * *

Sherlock accepted he wasn’t going to get any farther along the paths of deduction today without John’s help.

JACK RAMSAY’S ROOMMATE THE REFORM SCHOOL LIVERPOOL– THEY WERE CALLED ‘SCHOOLS FOR INCORRIGIBLES.’ CALL SHEILA MALONE.

　

"All right, but why? Would Sheila know? Jack was sent away to reform school when he was a just boy, wasn’t he?"

SHEILA’S NOT FROM MANN.

John sighed and picked up the telephone. This was going nowhere. He would have to call Donovan.

When she answered, and she snapped at him: "John, not now. Okay? Lestrade’s been sent out on leave – I’ve been doing his case load and mine – and these riot files are burying me. So, please luv, don’t take it personal, but sod off."

"Sally, I just need that number, again, "Stone" Malone’s wife. Sorry."

Now her interest was piqued. Before being mysteriously sent away "on leave" in the middle of the biggest crisis at the Yard in memory, Lestrade had carefully gone over the Ramsay murder book with her. One of the things on the list that they made was to re-interview Sheila Malone, the murderous Jack Ramsay’s ex-wife. His intended final victim.

"Why?"

Sherlock was waving his arms in protest. "Sherlock wants to ask her something."

"Well, guess what? So do I. So tell me what the question is and I’ll work on getting him an answer. In my spare time."

"Sally, look, it’s not that much to ask —"

"I. Don’t. Want. Sherlock’s. Help. Every time Detective Inspector Lestrade calls in the great Sherlock Holmes, that’s one less case solved under my own steam, d’you see? This case is under my charge now. I intend to keep it that way."

"Sally, you know "Stone" Malone won’t let his wife talk to you. Sherlock has an idea he can find who Ramsay roomed with, in reform school. It’s about the mother’s death, it’s not really even a murder case. Officially."

Donovan was silent, weighing. She figured John was actually right. Especially now. The Northern gangs had taken the opportunity to use the riots as an excuse for acts of violent retribution. A fact that, unbeknownst to nearly everyone, Mycroft Holmes had taken brutally efficient advantage of.

"All right, then. Here’s the number. I want a report back, understood? And tell his Highness I’m doing this for you, John. Not him."

"Got it. Now we’re even, I owe you a pint."

"You’ll have to come up to the Albert this time. I’m that buried."

John waved the slip of paper with Sheila Malone’s phone number on it like a triumphant flag.

Now Sherlock’s lip lifted in a painful effort to smile.

John held up a note of his own:

ICE CREAM.

Sherlock tried to look indifferent.

"Because, you know," John said, "your face is going to freeze like that, if you keep up that sneer."

Sherlock smoothed his expression into angelic innocence.

John rang for two dishes.

* * *

 

The books on Mycroft’s shelves were varied and fascinating. Classics of literature; a complete collection of the works of Dickens, Dumas, Hugo. Works in foreign languages, French, Spanish, Russian, something called Euskara. Tomes on physics, astronomy, mathematics. Volume after volume on art, architecture, from medieval to post-modern. Everything was organized, catalogued, and obviously well cared for. Many looked valuable, but most were apparently bought simply because Mycroft had an interest in the subject.

Lestrade picked up a few volumes and it was clear they had been read. This was not a library that had been assembled for show, the covers never cracked. One volume he pulled at random proved to be in Japanese, an antique, containing colorful art plates of Japanese nobles in gorgeous patterned kimonos – that upon closer inspection were parted to permit their owners to engage in erotic debauchery. It had the look of a book that had cost a fortune, yet it had no pride of place here.

In short, it appeared Mycroft was something of a Renaissance man.

Unlike his brother Sherlock, Lestrade sensed this was a man who deleted nothing, instead absorbing everything, hungry for knowledge of all kinds. He knew from experience, and not just police work, that siblings were more often than not quite different – rather than similar – in abilities and temperament. The contrast between the brilliant Holmes brothers was drawn starkly by the elegant, self-contained, orderly world of Mycroft’s library; a more different room than the chaotic disorder of 221b could scarcely be imagined.

Morris rapped on the door and entered. He observed Lestrade’s gun holster laid across the seat of one of the chairs where Lestrade had removed it, loosening his wilted shirt and tie after working twenty hours straight.

"Will you be wanting your gun cleaned, sir?" Morris offered.

Lestrade tried not to gape at the man. "It’s all right, I take care of my own gun, thanks anyway," he said as politely as he could.

"Is this . . . your only gun, sir?"

"Of course it is. I’m sure you know that most officers aren’t even allowed to carry one," he said.

Morris examined the Glock, and Lestrade thought he detected a brief hint of disapproval, but he could have been wrong. The man’s face might have been carved of stone.

"Will you be wanting . . .any additional guns while you’re here, sir? Mr. Holmes particularly desired that you should take any of the guns in the house that you might like."

Lestrade carefully put his drink down before he choked on it. "Any – additional guns? No, just the one is fine. Look, you don’t need to worry about me. Everything has been quiet as church. Thanks for the drink, I think I’ll turn in now, if you don’t mind."

Morris nodded and picked up his jacket and the gun holster and led Lestrade up a flight of stairs to a short hallway. He opened a door to a spacious bedroom, furnished in a few carefully chosen masculine antiques of what even Lestrade could see were of great quality and interesting character. Morris hesitated at the door.

"I would like to show you the guns, sir, before you retire. It is Mr. Holmes’s instruction, if you would please care to follow me to the end of the hall."

Lestrade sighed wearily, tearing his gaze away from the huge, extremely comfortable-looking bed and following the implacable Morris. There was a panel at the end of the hall hung with a painting which Lestrade thought had a faint resemblance to Mycroft, something in the style of Sargent; perhaps, a Holmes ancestor. The painting slid aside to reveal a digital pad, and Morris entered the code and showed it to Lestrade so he could open it himself.

Within was a closet lined with steel shelving lit with tiny halogen bulbs. The assortment of artillery was displayed with as much care as if they were gems in a jewelry case: pistols, rifles, telescopic sights, machine guns, night vision goggles, bulletproof vests, boxes of ammunition, all state-of-the-art and of manufactures– American, Swiss, German, Israeli – that he had only heard of, never seen.

His heart thudded as he realized, stunned, that whatever he had previously thought or imagined about Mycroft Holmes’ vague and anonymous position with the British Government, he had obviously been laboring under a mistake.

A very great mistake.

This was the toolkit of an assassin.

He stroked a few of the most beautiful pieces, unable to resist, and then carefully shut the door.

Morris met his gaze unflinchingly. Lestrade now saw that Morris had a bulge under the sleeve of his jacket from his own shoulder holster.

"Thanks, Morris. I think I’ve seen enough," he said.

 

To be continued . . .


	21. Hitchcock Blonde.

In the Footsteps of The Master. Chapter Twenty-One: Hitchcock Blonde.

I could watch you for a lifetime,

You’re my favourite movie.

A thousand endings,

You mean everything to me.

I never know what’s coming,

Forever fascinated -

Hope you don’t stop running

To me, ‘cause I’ll always be waiting.

You are

a cinema:

I could watch you forever,

Action thriller --

I could watch you forever.

You are

a cinema,

A Hollywood treasure.

Love you just the way you are --

A cinema. . .

 

_Lycics to "Cinema," all rights reserved Gary Go/Benny Benassi/Alle Benassi._

 

Sally pushed the silver keychain across the table, right under Mike Ramsay’s nose.

He reached out and closed the metal in his fist. The duty officer to leap to pry it from him lest he try and use it as a weapon. Sally waved the officer off.

"It’s all right, let him hold it. You want to touch it, don’t you?"

Mike Ramsay was gripping the silver keychain as tightly as if it held the keys to his own freedom. His eyes closed and he was in the grip of some private imagining.

"This key unlocks a very special door, doesn’t it, Ramsay? And you’re imagining it, right this minute, what’s happening behind that door – aren’t you?"

Ramsay broke out in wracking sobs, his shoulders shaking. "She was — supposed to be ---- coming back. To me. I – earned her. She’s mine."

Donovan held her breath. Ramsay was a slobbering mess. She carefully repeated the caution, and the brief, Granville, unsuccessful in getting Ramsay to keep quiet, practically shouted out objections for the record. But the dam had broken. Ramsay was ready to burst.

He said, "I’ll tell you everything. But I have to know — is she all right?"

Donovan kept her face calm, but she thrilled to the realization that here was one of those rare moments, where she just might, if she was very, very lucky, be able to save someone.

"Then you’d better tell us where she is, Mr. Ramsay. Where is Vera? And you’d better hope it’s not too late."

* * *

An hour later, Liverpool police broke down the door of a heavily secured penthouse at the top of an apartment tower.

The luxurious apartment within was furnished all in white. It was deadly silent. The air was still and close, as though the doors and windows had not been opened for a very long time. The furniture here was tossed about, and there was broken glass everywhere.

Leaning against a wall, the canvas slashed and torn, was a huge and garish photographic portrait. It depicted a striking young woman in a black dress with an emerald green velvet shawl. She had exotically slanted blue eyes, high cheekbones and masses of blonde hair swept high onto her head. The woman’s expression was dreamy, or haunted, and her gaze looked off into an indefinite point somewhere beyond the viewer.

Passing by the white leather sofas, one of the officers saw smears of blood.

It did not look fresh.

And then they were passing into the bedroom, where sunlight filtered through sheer white draperies over the tall windows. Draped across the bed was a broken form, no longer in any way resembling the regal woman in the portrait. A few of the officers had to turn away. But her chest rose and fell faintly.

* * *

Mycroft landed in a wooded area near a train station, and surreptitiously walked out of the wood and caught a train to Ascot.

For a single week each June, the Royal Ascot horse races brought the Royal Family, the international jet set, and racing enthusiasts to Ascot from the world over. Four days ago, CCTV cameras had captured images of a man working at the racetrack as a groom. The fact that he was glimpsed more than once in parts of the racetrack where he had no business to be caused security to try and detain him, but he vanished.

An impending visit from one of the minor Royals caused the image to be forwarded for routine examination by MI5, where it was discovered that the man appeared to be the mysterious terrorist known only as "Aguirre."

This was alarming. Aguirre was associated with the violent Basque separatist group ETA.

The Spanish government had had remarkably little success in suppressing ETA. As recently as 2009, Spain had been forced to go on terror alert upon reports of ETA plans for high-profile kidnappings. More troubling was the fact that despite ETA’s recent declaration of cease fire, hardliners were refusing to abandon terrorist methods.

The possibility that an ETA-affiliated terrorist may have infiltrated unnoticed into Ascot, so very close to the Queen’s palace at Windsor, could not be considered anything but a grave, if puzzling, threat.

* * *

Sally pushed graphic photographs of Vera’s mutilated body towards Mike Ramsay. She told him simply that she was in grave condition in a Liverpool hospital, but expected to live.

And Mike Ramsay began, at last, to tell his story.

A few years ago, he had been approached by a Russian gangster operating out of Liverpool, wanting police protection to bring large quantities of cash across the Irish Sea, ultimately to be laundered by less than respectable banks on the Isle of Man.

The relationship prospered; Mike Ramsay was a brilliant tactician. He orchestrated a scheme of ferries chartered for false tour groups, enabling the cash to be brought into Mann undetected.

* * *

Mike Ramsay had never married. His ideal of the perfect woman forever eluded him; all women fell short before a cool vision of blonde elegance, firmly embedded in childhood and nursed through incessant reinforcement. The Hitchcock Blonde.

His dreams remained just that until the fatal day he visited a squalid council flat in Liverpool, where the Russian women serviced furtive city executives looking for a cheap, anonymous thrill. Ramsay had been granted carte blanche. On that day, Mike expected no more than the usual unsatisfactory, mechanical encounter that quieted his urges for only a short while.

Instead, the new woman, Vera, proffered for his pleasure – tall, pale, blonde, with exquisite bone structure, silent and icily composed (a calm induced by drugs) – was the quintessence of his dream. He was allowed to take Vera for his own.

He locked her in down in his cellar.

It was the happiest time of his life.

Not long after, his brother Jack, brilliant and unstable, arrived on his doorstep in the dead of night.

He had fled London with an unexpected guest. Sherlock Holmes.

If sanctuary was not granted, Jack was not above threats. Because Mike had helped Jack find his victims, Jack’s own Hitchcock Blondes. It was part of a game the brothers had fantasized about since childhood, a game which Mike’s access to police software brought finally within reach.

But Jack did not have any real desire for these women, except the desire to see them suffer and bleed. And Mike realized too late that he didn’t want to be the partner in crime that Jack had always dreamed they would be, like the men in Rope, and Strangers on a Train.

But he had never imagined that Jack would find a replacement.

Jack wanted more than anything for Sherlock experience one of his crimes. Vera was so tempting, so perfectly modeled after the Hitchcock ideal; it was an irresistible opportunity. While Mike was away, Jack set up his video camera and started the game.

He gave Sherlock a long sharp knife and explained what he had to do.

Sherlock, delirious with drugs, tried valiantly to plunge the knife into Jack’s own chest, but succeeded only in dealing himself a serious wound.

Things would have ended very badly but for Mike’s unexpected and furious intervention.

Jack erased the film at Mike’s insistence. But Jack missed the faint trace of Vera’s shadow on the cellar stair; a shadow without which Donovan would never have thought to keep looking for the last victim.

* * *

Mike Ramsay’s stock had risen so high that he dealt with Kraslov himself. On the day Ramsay was arrested, the first call he made, even before his solicitor, was to Kraslov. He begged Kraslov to keep Vera safe for him until he was free, as his expensive brief assured him he would be.

Kraslov understood that small favors sometimes paid off tenfold. But when Kraslov paid Vera a courtesy visit, he was seized with a strong coveting of his own. It was a coveting he did not delay satisfying. Friendship was, after all, a disposable commodity. Vera became his favored mistress. Though no less a prisoner.

Upon Kraslov’s sudden disappearance, a rival Chechen gang stormed one of Kraslov’s strongholds, a Liverpool apartment tower, during the confusion of the Northern riots.

Astounded at finding the breathtaking Vera alone, the Chechens took out their black revenge upon her.

With extreme prejudice.

And although she was ultimately saved by the police as her life hung by a thread, Vera would never again resemble Mike Ramsay’s ideal, the quintessential Hitchcock Blonde.

* * *

Mycroft made his way through quiet village streets, so different to London’s bustle, to an ugly, newish semi-detached of cheap stucco and faux half-timbering off the High Street. Inside, the furniture was all stolidly traditional, in poorly chosen bright reds and greens, creating a sort of Christmas-village atmosphere.

Mycroft momentarily wondered whether Christmas at Riddleston Hall would be a more festive affair than in past years – always a debacle, punctuated by incessant snarking between he and Sherlock. He wondered whether he might persuade Lestrade to come – if he was so fortunate as to still be in his good graces several months hence.

He refused to consider the additional factor, being whether he would still be alive upon completion of his current assignment.

Mycroft completed a security sweep and opened his briefcase, spreading out his papers on a low table. The stiff armchair recalled to him that Lestrade was, hopefully, much more comfortable at this moment than he was; comfortable and safe in Mycroft’s own magnificent bed. He permitted himself the indulgence of a moment of regret that he was not there, with Lestrade, right at this very minute.

But that could not be.

Mycroft Holmes was England’s foremost expert on ETA.

Also, he possessed a rare fluency in the obscure language of the Basque people, Euskara.

As well as more practical skills.

As such, Mycroft knew there was no one else, no one better, that the Government could have called upon in the face of this strange incident.

He loosened his tie and got down to work at piecing together the fragmentary traces of Aguirre’s movements.

* * *

John telephoned Sheila Malone, and was unsurprised when the call was taken not by Sheila herself, but by her deceptively soft-spoken husband, the Selmore Mob gangster "Stone" Malone.

Somehow, he knew that Sherlock’s recommendation that he deploy some sort of flirting technique to get information was not going to work here.

"I don’t like people messing about with my wife, right?" Malone said softly. "I was nice and polite the first time, wasn’t I, in consideration of Mr. Holmes’ taking care of Jack Ramsay. Tell him for me he’s a diamond, mate. But now – piss off."

John said, "Wait, wait. We just want to know . . . if she has any idea who Jack was roommates with, back when he was a kid, in a reform school." He held his breath, expecting nothing. But Malone said ominously:

"I guess you know think you know all about Sheila, then."

"No - no, she didn’t say anything about herself, I swear. Ask your man Martin. But – can you ask her? Please. It’s important."

There was a silence. Then,

"Sheila says she has an old box of stuff that she took with her. When she left Jack. It’s some of Jack’s old stuff. I’ll leave it with Martin. But I won’t warn you again. Leave Sheila out of it."

This time they left the car at home and took the train and hired cabs to return to St. Helens and the home of Sheila Malone. When they rang at the gate, Martin came slouching down the drive with a cardboard box which he thrust sullenly at them. But as they turned to go, a woman’s voice crackled over the intercom:

"Is that Sherlock Holmes? Listen, I went to that same school, you know, the reform school. They had a separate wing, just for the girls. That’s where we met, Jack and I. I knew his roomie. Charlie Carter. Charlie’s dad owned a pub in Eccleston, the White Hart. I have to go."

The intercom clicked off abruptly.

* * *

Charlie Carter Sr., the publican of the White Hart, was not pleased to see the rather frightening figure of a black-and-blue Sherlock enter his establishment, even with the inoffensive John in his wake. Sherlock was determined to interview Carter himself. After a few tries that resulted only in audible popping sounds from his jaw, however, he rolled his eyes and stepped aside for John.

After the preliminaries of ordering and sampling a pint of best, John implied that they were assisting Scotland Yard with inquiries and introduced the awkward topic of the publican’s son having possibly been roommates the serial killer, Jack Ramsay.

The Ramsay murders were still notorious enough that the name caused everyone in the pub to fall silent, craning to hear what might be said. Carter’s face darkened, and he gestured angrily for John and Sherlock to follow him into the back. The poor man turned on them with dismay.

"Ever since I heard on those murders, I’ve been waiting for the police to show up on my doorstep. But my Charlie knew him, he did – I won’t lie. They were good mates. I didn’t hold with Jack, though."

"Can we speak to your son? Where is he?"

"He a Merchant Marine. He’s on a container vessel, somewhere on the Indian Ocean."

John frowned severely as he observed that Sherlock was making mental calculations as to whether they could possibly arrange to get onto that ship.

"You know, sir, Scotland Yard has reopened the case of the death of the Ramsay brothers’ mother," he fibbed, hoping the lie was not too obvious in his face. "It may not have been an accident."

"Not an accident? I remember . . . after the poor woman died, Charlie begged us to let him bring Jack home to us for holiday break. Jack didn’t want to go home to the Isle of Man."

Sherlock and John exchanged a look, understanding that finally, the dark curtain over the past was being torn to let in the light.

"Can you tell us anything about Jack’s whereabouts the day his mother died?" John asked, trying not to alarm the gentleman.

"He was in school, wasn’t he? I don’t see . . . . now I think of it . . . the kids had to keep a diary. What they did every day, if anything was bothering them. Charlie wasn’t much of a writer. But when school was over, they gave us his diaries. I suppose he might have written something about Jack. It was such a frightful thing, his mother dying like that."

"Won’t you let us look at them, Mr. Carter? It might be important."

"Do you know that the last time I spoke to Charlie, we talked about Jack Ramsay. He’d read about the murders, you know. He said that Jack and Mike both of them were always on about those Hitchcock movies, women getting stabbed and strangled and all. Creepy stuff, I could never bear to watch." He seemed to be considering, and then finally said: "Wait here, lads."

Some minutes later, Carter was coming down the stairs with a small stack of grey composition books. He handed them over with an expression of pride.

"Some people, you know, might be ashamed their child would end up in a place like that, but I can tell you it turned our Charlie right around. Shame it didn’t help Jack Ramsay."

* * *

Lestrade went back into the bedroom and laid down into the bed, transfixed by the vision of Mycroft’s arsenal. Although he was utterly worn out, his brain just wouldn’t shut off.

One of the things he decided was that he had obviously been wrong to dismiss Mycroft’s warnings about the Russians so cavalierly.

He switched the light back on and climbed out of bed, and checked his own gun. Then he lay it under his pillow, close to hand.

Just in case.

The next thing he decided was that it was time to call Mycroft. He wanted an explanation, if he could get Mycroft to give him one after his claim that he couldn’t tell him anything, and more even than an explanation, he just needed to hear his voice.

As he reached for his mobile, he noticed a silver-famed photograph on the bedside table. It was a family: mother, father, and two boys. They were standing in front of what seemed to be a handsome country house. He immediately recognized Lady Holmes, although the picture had to have been taken nearly twenty-five years ago, or more.

The tall man next to her must be her husband, Anthony Holmes. Mycroft resembled him as closely as Sherlock resembled his mother. John had told him once that the man had disappeared on an expedition when the brothers were young.

Sherlock looked to be possibly eight years old in the picture, impossible not to recognize by his miniature scrawny frame, piercing blue eyes and mop of dark unruly hair. The camera had not quite caught him clearly. Sherlock’s face was faintly blurred, but it was still possible to see that he was scowling.

Mycroft, however, was quite different to his tall elegant adult self; looking the age of maybe twelve, with limbs awkwardly out of proportion to his stocky build. Lestrade touched Mycroft’s picture softly with his fingertip. He saw that Mycroft had a seemingly protective hand on his brother’s shoulder. Lestrade’s detective instincts wanted to know the reason for Sherlock’s scowl, for the blur; he decided that Sherlock was pulling away, rebelling from his older brother’s protective – or was it a restraining? hand.

Just then there was a quiet knock on the door and it opened, a flood of light outlining Morris. He had a gun.

"Sir, I believe there’s someone trying to get into the house," Morris whispered in matter-of-fact tones, as though announcing tea was served. "I’m to take you to the safe room. Now. Please hurry."

"Fuck that," Lestrade said, grabbing his gun. "Let’s find out what the bastard wants, then."

Morris nodded cooly, as though he had expected this. "Remember I did try, sir."

They went to the top of the stair with guns drawn. There was an unmistakable sound of a key turning in a lock. Lestrade could see a digital pad near the frame of the front door blinking red. The door opened and man slumped face first onto the floor. A pool of blood slowly seeped onto Mycroft’s priceless carpet.

Lestrade and Morris rushed down and Lestrade carefully turned him over. The man had been shot. Dark blood pumped out of a wound in his chest.

"Mr. Robert!" Morris exclaimed. "Where is Rennet? And the others?"

Robert, also known as Agent 009, shook his head.

"No time," he whispered. "Someone . . .inside . . . Tell Mycroft —"

He passed out. Lestrade shook him as Morris started calling on his mobile. "What do you want us to tell Mycroft?"

Robert’s eyes fluttered, and he weakly pressed something into Lestrade’s hand. The blood slowed, then its rhythmic flow stopped.

"Hurry," Lestrade said, and began what he could see would be futile efforts to save the man.

After a few minutes, some paramedic types arrived. But Lestrade heard no ambulance. One of them quietly conferred with Morris while looking at Lestrade with cold, suspicious eyes. Lestrade turned away and surreptitiously opened his bloody palm to examine what Robert had given him.

It was a torn piece of blood-soaked newspaper, with a word barely visible in tiny letters written in the margin: BILBAO.

And wrapped in the newspaper, an antique-looking silver coin, stained with blood. It bore the profile of a Roman and some crude letters. Lestrade held the coin up to the light.

It read, "DIES IRAE."

* * *

Sherlock and John decided they had done all they could in the North. They left Riddleston Hall and returned to London, arranging to meet with Donovan at New Scotland Yard to present her with the evidence from Sheila Monroe and Charlie Carter, Sr.

They had obtained new mobiles. Sherlock’s first text was to Mycroft, a series of flurried queries about the Russians from the warehouse, whether there was still any danger. Sherlock became visibly agitated when Mycroft did not respond after a few hours, nor to Sherlock’s increasingly frequent texts hourly thereafter.

But they kept their appointment with Donovan. She cleared a space in "the war room" set aside for the Ramsay case. John looked sadly at the photographs of the dead women, the same photographs he had taken from Sally, all those months ago. Now there was a new photograph of a mutilated woman, different from the others. Sally saw him looking at it, and said proudly,

"Don’t worry about that one, lads. We got to her in time. That’s Vera."

Sherlock wrote out a note, THE SHADOW IN THE VIDEOTAPE?

Sally was exceedingly gratified that Sherlock was voiceless for once, and she nodded.. "Ramsay told us where to find her, in the end. Just in time."

She pointed to a complicated graph connecting Mike Ramsay to the Russian mobster Vladimir Kraslov and his gang, to the money laundering scheme, to the sex slave ring, and to Vera, who had suffered by far the worst injuries of the rescued women; to his brother Jack Ramsay, and his serial killing spree.

"You see, Mike is in the middle of all of it. He’ll go to jail for a hundred years. I wish we still had hanging," she said darkly.

"How did you find Vera?" John asked.

"It was very odd. I got an anonymous tip. Somebody left an envelope on my doorstep. It had a key to the apartment where Kraslov was keeping her. And a note telling me where to find Kraslov’s body. He’s dead. So are a few of his men." She looked at both of them steadily, particularly scrutinizing Sherlock’s battered face. They looked back with blank faces, but both were thinking of Mycroft; they were thinking of the warehouse, and the fire. They didn’t look at each other. But they were both wondering how it had come to pass that Kraslov was dead. John remembered Mycroft’s parting words, that they were all safe from the Russians now. He had a chilling feeling that he knew just what Mycroft had done to make that possible.

There didn’t seem to be anything else to do but to show Donovan what they had found. Jack Ramsay’s box from Sheila didn’t seem to contain anything of interest, mostly it was old comic books and a few family photographs. But a short reel of old film in the bottom of the box was a mystery remaining to be examined.

It was the diaries of Charlie Carter that were the real treasure. Inarticulate and devoid of detail as they were, it was what wasn’t there that was important. A page was torn out. The page that was the date of the night that Mrs. Ramsay had fallen to her death. And in the diary for the following year, Charlie wrote that he and Jack were no longer roommates. In a shaky hand , he wrote that he hoped Jack never found out that he had seen him crawl out the window that night, because Jack was turning very queer and he was afraid what he would do to him. He said that just as soon as he got out of reform school, he was joining up with the Merchant Marines.

He wanted to put the whole wide ocean between him and Jack Ramsay.

Sally was triumphant. "Boys, I’d almost kiss you – well, you John, anyway. I’ll set up a phone interview with this Charlie Carter. Now Jack’s dead — sorry, Sherlock — he can tell what he knows. Although I’m not sure there’s any way to bring poor Mrs. Ramsay any justice, now."

Sherlock was holding up the reel of film to the light and examining the tiny images.

"We can get a projector, wait just a minute. That’s awfully old looking." She called down for help and shortly, an old-fashioned movie projector was set up and the technician carefully threaded the fragile film. They switched off the lights and the flickering images projected against the wall.

* * *

The men Mycroft had assigned to guard Lestrade and watch the house, Rennett and the others, were nowhere to be found. Morris tried to stop him when was clear Lestrade intended to leave the house in St. John’s Wood.

"Sir! Where are you going, you’re not supposed to leave!"

"Where the bloody hell do you think I’m going? I’m going to find Mycroft. If you have any idea where he is, you’d better tell me now."

Morris shook his head. "I don’t know, I’m never privileged to know. For good reason."

"Anthea?"

"You can try. Doubtful."

Lestrade quickly ascertained that Morris was right. Anthea had been told only that Mycroft would be away and that while he might contact her, but that she should consider herself on temporary assignment to Mycroft’s colleague and sometime rival, Sanjay Singh.

"Sir, please," Morris almost let a pleading tone creep into his voice. "Mr. Holmes would want you to stay. I know I shouldn’t say this. He’s never — well, he’s never had a gentleman stay. Ever. If you know what I mean. And that’s how I know it’s so very important to him."

Lestrade gave a grim smile and shrugged on his coat. "In that case, I’m afraid that Mr. Holmes doesn’t know me as well as — well, as well as he should. I think I’ll have another look in that gun cabinet."

Lestrade realized that he should probably have given the paper and the coin to Morris, who would have passed them on to people who knew best what to do about them; but after all that had happened, he trusted no one.

He chose one of the more manageably-sized pistols, better even than his own, and some bullets. As a law enforcement officer, he would be able to transport them through airport security, but not in the cabin of the jet.

Then he left the house in St. John’s Wood, and took a taxi to Heathrow.

He was on a month’s leave; his time was his own.

He had looked up "Bilbao" on his mobile. It was, as he had vaguely recalled, a city on the northern coast of Spain.

A Basque city, apparently.

It was most known for just for one thing: The Guggenheim Museum, a world-class piece of architecture by the superstar Frank Gehry.

He texted Mycroft’s mobile after finding that Mycroft’s voicemail was apparently not functioning, and left things as vague as possible:

PLEASE CALL. TRUST NO ONE. I ARRIVE BILBAO 13:00. I WILL WAIT MUSEUM CLOSING HOUR. EXPLAIN WHEN I SEE YOU.

BE CAREFUL FOR ME.

He understood the meaning of the third card now, about learning something new, and about sticking with something to the very end.

It wasn’t about the Ramsay case after all.

* * *

Donovan, Sherlock and John watched the short film.

An elegant woman, with frosty blonde hair piled into a high bun on her head, was looking into the camera. She was carefully made up. There was professional lighting. She was holding a piece of paper.

A card was held in front of her briefly that read, "Film Test. Regina Thomas. September 3, 1959."

A slow, ironic, lugubrious voice, accented in a sort of poshed-up Cockney, boomed loudly into the room:

"Turn to the left, please," and the woman did. Her profile was not so good, her chin perhaps a little weak.

"And stand up and walk toward the light," the voice commanded. She did, and despite her elegant attire, her gait was a little ungainly. She smiled uncertainly.

"Don’t you want me to read from this?"

"Thank you, that will be all, Miss . . . Thomas."

The light faded and the short film flapped on the reel.

Sherlock picked up a photograph from Jack Ramsay’s box, the one that Sheila had given them. In it, the woman in the film was holding two little boys by her side. They all smiled into the camera.

"I know that voice," John said. "That’s – that’s Alfred Hitchcock! We used to watch "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" on telly, when I was a kid."

Sherlock nodded his head. He really didn’t know. But Sally was nodding, too. "It is his voice, I’m sure. That’s amazing."

Sherlock held up the photograph. "ITS MRS. RAMSAY" he wrote out.

They looked at each other in wonder.

Mrs. Ramsay, the boys’ mother, had had a screen test with the great Alfred Hitchcock.

Rejected, she had apparently spent the rest of her life scrutinizing The Master of Suspense’s films, over and over, trying endlessly to discover the essential difference between herself and the cool, elegant, remote women of Hitchcock’s films.

It was an obsession that had spilled over and infected her sons, to murderous effect.

An obsession that ultimately led to her own death at the hand of her son Jack.

In that way, she truly had become what she always had wanted to be.

A Hitchcock Blonde.

 

 

The End.

 

  
 **Author's Notes:**  
  
I am a serious Hitchcock devotee.  I have all of his films in my collection, and re-read several books of criticism while writing this fic, an homage to Hitchcock and his own obsessions.  Some of my favorites are:  
  
 _The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock_.  Donald Spoto  
 _Hitchcock at Work_ : Bill Krohn  
 _An Eye for Hitchcock_ : Murray Pomerance  
 _Hitchcock and Art: Fatal Coincidences_ : Dominique and Guy Cogeval  
  
I chose to dig deep into Hitchcock canon and bring readers some of his earliest works: _Blackmail, The Manxman, The Man Who Knew Too Much (original version), The 39 Steps_. These films have the virtue of having been made in Britian, as well as establishing the  eternal themes of infidelity, bondage and obsession that run through Hitchcock's entire work.  We also looked at _Rope, Strangers on a Train, Psycho,_ and _Marnie._  
.  
  
The story of our murderous Jack Ramsay's obsession with a particular sort of victim; Jack and Mike Ramsay's mother's lifelong obsession with her own failure to satisfy Mr. Hitchcock; and the story of Mike Ramsay's obssession with the Russian sex slave Vera, saved in the end by Sally Donovan's determination (with a little behind the scenes help from Mycroft), are my homage to Hitchcock's fascination with his iconic "Hitchcock Blondes," but especially with his reputed obession with the actress Vera Miles:  [](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001swff/) (Vera Miles)  
  
  
  
Donald Spoto writes that Vera Miles was Hitchcock's choice to play the role of Madeline in "Vertigo," and that she was one of Hitchcock's grand obsessions, an iconic cool blonde, elegant and inaccessible; but she married and became pregnant at the time "Vertigo" was coming to fruition, allegedly angering Hitchcock: he and already developed wardrobe for Vera Miles in the expectation that she would star in this, his greatest romantic thriller:  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001tce4/)  
(Vera Miles Wardrobe for Vertigo)  
  
  
  
 But then the studios wanted Kim Novak instead.  Hitchock was never flattering to Novak's work in "Vertigo," showing the difficulty of fulfulling another's obsessive dream.  But critics agree (as do I) that Novak was perfect, haunting and natural in the difficult dual part:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001wgrd/)  
(Hitchcock directing Kim Novak in "Vertigo")  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002fsxt/)  
(Kim Novak as Madeleine Elster in "Vertigo")  
  
  
  
  
The portrait of Vera found in the Liverpool penthouse, where Vera was nearly murdered by the Chechen gang, is a reference to the "Portrait of Carlotta" from the film "Vertigo."

" _Leaning against a wall, the canvas slashed and torn, was a huge, garish photographic portrait. It depicted a striking young woman in a black dress with an emerald green velvet shawl; she had exotically slanted blue eyes, high cheekbones and masses of blonde hair swept high onto her head. The woman’s eyes were dreamy, or haunted, and looked off into an indefinite point somewhere beyond the viewer_." _(ITFOTM, Ch. 21, 'Hitchcock Blonde')_

      
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001pd12/) (Madeline/Novak and 'The Portrait of Carlotta' at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, "Vertigo")  
  
  
  
as well as of Novak as Madeline Elster, wearing the black and emerald green gown in which Scottie (James Stewart) first sees Madeline, and falls in love with her at first sight:  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002gg0x/)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001r7dz/) (Novak/Madeline Elster, "Vertigo")  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 **THE HITCHCOCK BLONDES:**  
The final chapter of  ITFOTM is called _"Hitchcock Blonde_."  Here are the Hitchcock Blondes:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00021x85/)  
  
(Anny Ondra, Blackmail, The Manxman)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00023c46/)  
(Madeline Carrol, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Secret Agent)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002dp51/)  
(Priscilla Lane, Saboteur)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001yfb9/)  
(Ingrid Bergman, Notorious, Spellbound, Under Capricorn)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00024ady/)  
  
(Anne Baxter, I Confess)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000258pe/)  
  
(Carole Lombard, Mr and Mrs Smith)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00026hp7/)  
(Marlene Dietrich, Stage Fright)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002eh7d/)  
(Ann Todd, The Paradine Case)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000270h5/)  
(Doris Day, The Man Who Knew Too Much )  
  
  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001x02b/)  
  
(Grace Kelly: Rear Window, Dial M For Murder, To Catch A Thief)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00020e56/)  
  
(Kim Novak, Vertigo)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000222wf/)  
(Eva Marie Saint, North by Northwest)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0001z71e/)  
(Tippi Hedren, Marnie, The Birds)  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/000280y7/)  
(Janet Leigh, Psycho)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/00029erd/)  
(Julie Andrews, Torn Curtain)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002a911/)  
(Barbara Leigh, Frenzy)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002bs1t/)  
(Barbara Harris, Family Plot)  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002c8cx/)  
(Karen Black, Family Plot)  
  
  
  
 **THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION:** Mr. Hitchcock often employed shadowy gangs of criminals, saboteurs, and spies in his films: often Russian or German ( _Sabotage; Saboteur; The 39 Steps; The Lady Vanishes; Notorious; North by Northwest; The Man Who Knew Too Much; Topaz;Torn Curtain_ ); and so I followed in Hitchcock's footsteps to weave in the Russian mafia subplot as a counterpoint to the serial killings of Jack Ramsay. (In my next fic, _All Souls' Day,_  I follow this to its logical conclusion for a Mystrade adventure and we take on a terrorist cell.)  
  
I researched the rise of the Russian and Chechen mafias in England and elsewhere in many articles, including official publications of Britian's Serious Organised Crime Agency and the CIA.  I was flattered when a reader who had lived in Liverpool commented that my depiction of the St Petersburg Supper Club, where Mycroft in his identity as "Sergei" met with the boss Kraslov  to discuss an illicit arms deal (and whom Mycroft shortly dispatched so ruthlessly), was spot on: although the St Petersburg Supper Club was my own invention, it came from my researches of the Russian mafia operations in Liverpool.  And many readers will see my nod to the film "Eastern Promises" here as well.   
  
  
 **The Riots:**  
  
While writing this fic, I referenced the Toxteth Riots of 1981, in which the Ramsay brothers' grandfather's  
 radio station was destroyed; later to become the Russian gangsters' hideout for some of their sex slaves.   
  
The Toxteth Riots of 1981:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002pxht/)  
  
  
  
And then, riots broke out in London whilst I was writing this fic:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002q4w4/)  
  
  
Within a day, the riots had spread North and Toxteth was once again the site of rioting:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002rbh4/)  
  
In ITFOTM, the Russian mafia boss Kraslov wants to take advantage of the rioting to take on his Chechen rivals in Liverpool and Leeds.  
  
 **Pentonville Prison:**  
  
Where Mike Ramsay is imprisoned and where Sally Donovan conducts a series of important interrogations:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002s5kh/)  
  
  
  
 **John's "local," The Gunmaker's Pub, 33 Aybrook Street, London**  
  
Where Sally meets John to ask his help in getting Sherlock to assist Lestrade with the serial killer investigation. The Gunmaker's is a few blocks from the real 221b Baker Street (not the filming location on Gower Street) and close to the Baker Street tube station:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002w1hd/)  
  
  
 **The Isle of Man:**  
  
The boys all spent important time on the Isle of Man in ITFOTM.  
  
St.John, Isle of Man, where both John and Lestrade have their cards read at Felicia Killingsworth's cottage; Witches' Hill in the background:  
  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002hp3z/)  
  
The Port of Douglas, Isle of Man, where Mycroft found Lestrade drinking in a bar;  where John returned by motorcycle from the ferry to Liverpool; where Sherlock was held captive in Mike Ramsay's house:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002k4pt/)  
  
Onchan, where Jack Ramsay falsified Sherlock's suicide by jumping from the sea cliff; and where Jack Ramsay killed his (possibly) first victim as a youth:  
  
[](http://pics.livejournal.com/ghislainem70/pic/0002tqzd/)  
  
  
 _*Thanks to everyone who kept me company on this adventure <3  Your comments and support are truly a gift.*_

The adventures continue in the next case!fic, "All Soul’s Day." Thanks to everyone who kept me company on this adventure <3

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Cover Art] for Ghislainem70's In the Footsteps of the Master: A Hitchcockian Thriller](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2136783) by [Hamstermoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hamstermoon/pseuds/Hamstermoon)




End file.
